


Oceans of Time

by Violet_Jones



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 1930s, 1960s, 19th Century, 20th Century, All sorts of that kinda thing, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Biting, Brooding, Character Turned Into Vampire, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Far Future, Friends to Enemies, Gothic, Horror, M/M, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Murder, Mutual Pining, Romance, Vampire Sex, Vampires, Violence, farming, lotsa tropey goodness up in this vampery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-05-28 14:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Jones/pseuds/Violet_Jones
Summary: In early 1800s England, Ian, a 19-year-old human farm boy, first encounters Mickey, a 57-year-old vampire who looks 25. A tentative friendship soon becomes a fraught love story that spans 243 years and beyond, skipping through decades and centuries, oceans and continents, turmoil and rest. Two superhumans are pulled together by their profound connection and shared history into an inextricable destiny.





	1. Best Beloved One

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was hit with the sudden inspiration to unite the following Tumblr post prompts, and then I couldn't stop writing until I had a full outline and first chapter:
> 
>  
> 
> [Prompt 1](http://superhumanstilinski-archive.tumblr.com/post/120720702082)  
> [Prompt 2](http://enigmaticagentalice.tumblr.com/post/174318442250)
> 
>  
> 
> This is way different than anything I've ever written before, so I'm flexing muscles I haven't used in a while it feels like. Aside from the content and style being different, I'm also going to pace it differently than I normally do, with a higher chapter count, and shorter word count per chapter. So we will burn through the story pretty quickly, but in a measured way. And hopefully I will update faster. 
> 
> It's not going to be dialogue-heavy. It's going to be moody and atmospheric. It's going to draw on vampire lore from a lot of different authors and works, but mainly Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. 
> 
> All the beginning of chapter quotes and chapter titles are from Bram Stoker's writing, with a few that are from the Francis Ford Coppola movie version of Dracula, including the main title.

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you.”

*

“As he spoke, he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's _Lenore:_ ‘For the dead travel fast.’”

*****

**Berlin, Germany, 1932**

Ian is having a roaring good time tonight. He’s in one of his finest suits, red-orange slicked-back hair a fiery beacon, a gleaming white satin scarf around his neck to match his pristine teeth. He’s got not one, not two, but _three_ perfectly styled foppish boys hanging on his every word and movement. Their mixed scents permeate the air around their group, and Ian subtly sniffs any neck that leans close to his nose. He’s also been sniffing the cocaine powder that a half-naked flapper girl (Ian’s pretty sure they don’t call themselves flappers anymore, but despite the advantages of his nature, he has a hard time keeping up with the changing vernacular, like any old person seems to) has been gladly sharing amongst their party. He’s feeling no pain, and letting loose, because he knows that the end of an era is nigh.

Everyone around here knows, yet it’s easier to just keep pretending for as long as possible. You don’t have to be a genius to see the prescient image of angry Nazis storming the nightclub entrances and wreaking havoc as they shut down the premises. It’s only a matter of time now.

Berlin is a unique island of depravity all its own, but the writing is already on the wall throughout the rest of Deutschland. It may be the last German city to fall to the widespread fascism closing in, but it will fall the hardest.

Ian’s been a part of the scene here for the better part of a decade. He’d been in Paris in 1924 when he’d started reading and hearing stories of the wild, sinful extravagance happening in the streets and cabarets of what was called the capital of the Weimar Republic. He knew of the cultural revolution taking place, and had wanted to be a part of the enclave of writers, artists, musicians, intellectuals, and best of all, homosexuals, staking their claim on a small territory in the world.

It's been liberating in ways he can hardly begin to describe. If the boy he’d once been so long ago could see him now. Well, he’d die of shock, surely. The future being in every way unfathomable to who he was when he’d been alive. _Alive_ alive. Before he became… _other_. Dead alive. He had many names for it.

But of course, with every great movement to advance society forward, some horrible force born of the darkest depths in humanity has to come along and thwart it. He has plans to leave Europe soon. The threat is gaining strength beyond just the one country’s borders.There are echoes of totalitarianism coming from Italy, Greece, Spain, Belgium, and more. It’s infuriating really. Things are so much better for everyone in this place and time, but people have to go and ruin it. Try to take it back to when it was harder. His brain abhors the weakness of men seeking power, and the weakness of the people who act powerless to stop them. Part of the conundrum of being partially alive, and beyond death. He can see so many things so clearly, yet can still do very little to change anything outside of himself.

There is one thing about the presence of Nazis in Berlin that eases Ian’s conscience. And that’s that he’s able to hunt them without remorse. It’s nice to taste sweet boys of his own persuasion, because he can’t deny that he greatly enjoys mixing carnal pleasures in with the ritual of feeding, but sometimes the killer instinct inside cannot be tamed. It’s always teetering in the background inside himself, like a ticking time bomb. And he doesn’t enjoy killing, but sometimes he _needs_ to. His thirst demands it.

After a hundred years, you learn to read people. A much heightened instinct guides you; _reveals_ to you exactly what the true nature of a person is. He can spot murderers and rapists from literal miles away. Well, maybe not _literal_. He does have excellent night vision, thank you very much, but he does need to be nearer to feel the aura emanating off a human.Unless he catches them in some vile act of pointless violence. That, he _can_ spot from a significant distance, given the right vantage point. He’s stumbled upon quite a few of those scenes over the years, and become some macabre version of a knight in shining armor to a decent number of victims, if only for brief, fleeting moments.

Bad guys are bad guys, though. And hunting them for sport is a decent pastime, to be honest. He is actually _composed of_ death and suspended decay, so it would seem unnatural not to have the odd psychotic persuasion.

Tonight, though, he has no interest in hunting to kill. He’s not experiencing any inclination toward true darkness. Or at least, no more than what’s within his natural range. He’s going to have one, or two, or all three of these boys (he really should be learning to call them _men_ in his own head, but to him, they are as young as babes, despite clearly being approximate to Ian's appearance of 24 in human age). He's going to taste each of them, and do naughty things between them on his big brass bed, and it’s going to be a night to remember. At least for a few weeks time. Maybe even months if he’s lucky.

One pretty young thing is leaning in coquettishly to say something into Ian’s ear, the implied excuse for closeness being an attempt to be heard over the din of the large hall, and Ian is smiling wide, not so much amused as chemically induced, when everything changes. He’s fairly certain the boy is asking him to dance, but all words are now falling upon deaf ears. The boisterous jazz music in the background fades into nothing, taking the chatter and laughter of the crowd with it. All human action around him ceases to register in any way as he gazes transfixed.

For there before him, not twenty meters away, is a man he’d been certain he’d never see again, no matter how long they both lived. A face he hadn’t so much as glimpsed in over a century, yet still remembered every single minute detail of.

_Mickey._

Ian somehow gasps, despite not actually breathing as a bodily function, and his momentary surprise, tinged with a yearning and a hope that hadn’t been a part of him in a long, long time, dissipates on a dime. It is immediately replaced with a kind of burning ire that can only be felt when someone has deeply wronged you. Wounded you. Left you for dead.

_Fucking Mickey._

Ian scowls profoundly, and in the infinitesimal second it takes to turn away from that pale, sharp, inviting physiognomy, he knows that Mickey is following him.

The protests of the friends he’s made for the night do nothing at all to deter Ian as he very consciously controls his movements to remain in humanlike range and walks swiftly out of the club. Once he’s on the streets, he knows exactly which direction to head in so as to get lost in the nearest back alley where he can let go. Once in that safe space, sure that Mickey’s not far behind, Ian takes off running at preternatural speed, then leaps toward the sky, propelled by the great force inside of him. He lands on a deserted rooftop and keeps going, nothing more than a blur across the cityscape as he bounds from building to building.

Going up above street level should help Mickey lose his scent. Hopefully he won’t know how to follow, or where to find him.

How _did_ Mickey find him? And _why_?

After all these years, what purpose could there possibly be?

But then, nothing Mickey ever did made much sense. That had been the most maddening thing about him when they’d known each other. An actual lifetime ago. In the place where Ian was born. In the place where Ian died.

He still remembers everything with the acuity of someone with heightened perception and abilities. He’d probably never be able to forget. Nor forgive.

  


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**Shropshire, England, 1810**

The day Ian Gallagher officially meets the strange man who'd moved into the castle up the road from his family’s humble farmhouse starts like any other… at the crack of dawn, rooster crowing in the background, his brothers in the beds surrounding his. The mare the eldest boy, Philip, had purchased is neighing in her paddock. She’s still not been broken, and Ian’s worried that Lip may not be up to the task.

He gets up and goes out into the hallway, to the window at the end, where he can open it and look out at the sun rising in the east. He’s always the first one up, and the last to bed, to boot. He has to give himself the time to do more in the day than just his expected duties on the farm. Too much of his daily routine is filled with mundanity. He reads, and rereads many books. It’s not exactly easy to get his hands on new material. He does know a couple of sellers in Shrewsbury that he tries to visit once a month and haggle with for exchanges and discounts on the more used looking tomes brought in by the townsfolk. Shrewsbury is the biggest city near to their small village outside of Clun, but it’s still not very big, and they have no library.

Their farm does well enough, but their family still has very little money left to spare outside of the necessities. Their parents were dead, both taken by Consumption, which his youngest sister, Deborah, had also contracted. She was miraculously spared, but remains a sickly child at only 8 years old. The doctor has never offered much comfort by way of ensuring any meaningful life expectancy. She’s the only one in the house exempt from chores. Ian brings her books as often as he gets them for himself. The eldest Gallagher sibling, Fiona, is in charge of everyone and everything on the land. They retain no servants from their most prosperous days, back when their parents were alive and they were able to conduct business with people beyond their country county. Every able-bodied Gallagher must work. That includes Ian’s two younger brothers, Carl and Liam. Carl is merely 10, and Liam 6, but they pull their weight.

No sooner has the sun fully risen when Fiona ambles out of her room at the opposite end of the hallway, and they greet each other and go down to the kitchen to make a quick, simple breakfast. The chickens and the sheep have all been fed by the time he’s joined by his brothers. They’ve recently expanded their livestock to include cattle. Their sheep numbers have dwindled considerably since the glory days, and with competition from the cities where factories are now producing cloth so plentifully, they don’t have as many buyers of wool. But people always want beef, and they can even sell the bones for fertilizer. It was all Lip’s idea. Ian's still a bit squeamish about the slaughtering, but he’s accepted it as a necessary evil.

They keep one other horse, a stallion that’s been with them for years, and Ian takes extra good care of him now, as some kind of penance for the dead cows. Lip has some scheme about breeding him with the new mare, but Ian has a feeling it’s not going to work out the way he expects it to.

Around midday, before breaking for a lunch of soup and bread, Ian turns his gaze to the partially crumbling castle in the distance. There’s always been an eerie vibe about it, but it’s somehow more pronounced whenever someone is occupying it. Someone from the Milkovich clan will sometimes return to it, an ancestral property no doubt, but no one ever seems to stay for more than a year or two at a time, and it’s been a long while since the last visit. But a solicitor from town that fancies Fiona will occasionally drop by their house and provide the gossip they tend to hear very little of, being so far out of the way. And last he appeared, he’d informed them that a young pair of siblings were currently inhabiting the dilapidated tower. It wasn’t really that big or fancy for a castle, but Ian had never been near enough to really know for sure if it was as dark and cold as it appeared to be from afar.

Fiona had made them all promise a long time ago that they would keep away from both the place and whoever they happened to see in or around it. There’d always been whispers throughout the county about the grounds and the family that owned them. Frightful tales straight out of some sensational broadside sold at an execution. Yarns spun by old wives back in the days of accused witchcraft and passed down to succeeding generations. Ian wasn’t sure he believed in any of that kind of nonsense, but he didn’t go looking for potential trouble all the same. He hadn’t heard of any mysterious disappearances round these parts since he was a boy. And even then, he was inclined to believe that people going missing nearby had simply fallen into the river or some such, and washed away downstream to become another parish’s problem.

Just because he’d never seen anyone come or go from those gloomy grounds during the daylight hours didn’t mean anything foul was abound. He reckons some people are just nocturnal. Like owls, or raccoons, or bats. Or jaguars. (Debbie and Ian are fascinated by the big cats found in the illustrations from _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_. He dreams of one day being able to see some far-flung corner of the world where exotic creatures roam unknown terrains. He listens to Debs make up stories about those impossible future travels and laughs and says they’ll find a way sometime soon. She pretends to not to know they’re fooling one another.)

It’s just past dusk when all hell breaks loose.

Fiona is inside with Debbie, Lip is still out delivering a cart of fleece bales to town, Carl and Liam are playing in the fields. Ian’s around the side of the house farthest away from the pens and paddocks, bathing his arms, face, and neck in the outdoor basin before supper, when he hears a series of loud neighs, followed by a thunderous roar of collective movement. His eyes go wide and his heart immediately begins pounding hard as he drops the soap and ladle in his hands and darts toward the commotion.

All of his internal organs seem to jump up into his throat as he watches in horror at the scene unfolding. The new mare has broken free of her ropes and charged the cattle pen. The cattle are busting through their wooden gate in a panic and running as a pack into the fields. The fields where Carl and Liam have been running around playing leapfrog and tag.

Ian cries out loudly, “Carl! Liam! Get out of there!” He gestures wildly with his arms, sweeping toward the house as he runs full speed parallel to the cattle herd. They look over in alarm and take off, but it’s too late. There’s no time to get out of the way. Ian sees it all happen as if from some other plane of existence. The cattle mercifully blocks the view of the more graphic aspects of his too-young brothers being hit with the full force of a stampede, but it’s no comfort at all. They can’t possibly lose two Gallaghers in one fell swoop. They just cannot. It’s impossible. Death is not an option.

In a blur, he’s there beside them, throwing himself uselessly down to the ground where they both lay unmoving. There’s blood everywhere, and no eyes are open. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He has no idea what to do. He’s on the verge of his soul floating away from his body, because he thought he was a smart person, but he doesn’t have a clue how to fix this. He’s never felt so helpless in all his life.

He doesn’t even realize he’s screaming, but he must be, because his throat feels strained. Crying for help in vain as he cradles small, limp bodies in his arms.

And just as quickly as all the rest that’s happened, if not quicker, someone else is there beside him. He thinks it must be Fiona, but it’s not. Not at all. He barely even registers who it is and what they’re doing. It’s like all his senses have failed. His eyes are practically unseeing. He’s frozen. Suspended in time.

“Move! Move!” he hears as if from a great distance, and his brothers are ripped from his grip. Ian's become the limp rag doll, slumped in the grass in a daze.

The dark figure is leaning over one boy, then the other, then there’s two loud, harsh intakes of breath, followed by coughing and panting, and when Ian looks again, the figure has moved aside, and both Liam and Carl are sitting up, eyes darting all over the place, astonished, terrified expressions painting their faces. Then confusion all around.

“What…?” Carl says in wonder.

“Ian?” Liam softly murmurs.

“I don’t understand,” Ian answers, looking them over. Over and over again.

The blood is still there. It’s still all over, and yet… they both seem completely unharmed.

It’s impossible. It’s a miracle, but it should not be. _It’s not possible._

Finally, he looks to the figure once more, yelping involuntarily as he registers who it is.

It’s the Milkovich boy. Man. The heir to the castle everyone calls haunted. The one Fiona made him swear never to speak to. He’s never seen him before, but he knows that it’s him somehow. It's the only person he could be.

And despite his current state of shock, it strikes Ian how exquisite the man is. He looks almost as if he would be hard to the touch, as if cut from marble, yet soft and fine, with luminescent skin and bright red lips. And his eyes… they’re quite mesmerizing… icy blue like a frozen river, and glass-like in their unwavering intensity.

But what just happened? What did he do? How did he appear here? _What did he do?_

“How?” is all Ian manages to whisper, before Fiona is screaming from across the yard as she runs toward them.

They all turn to watch her, and Ian calls out, “They’re okay! They’re okay, Fiona!”

_But how?_

Ian turns back to study the man that had just created some kind of glorious magic to save his kin, but there’s no one else there.

“Where’d he go?” asks Ian, swiveling all around to look for a retreating form and seeing nothing.

“Who?” asks Carl, disoriented.

But then Fiona is there, shrieking with worry and checking the boys over, talking to Ian, trying to get answers, but he has none. He just shakes his head and repeats, “They’re okay.”

His head feels woozy, as if it had been stomped on by a few large cows itself.

“Thank God!” says Fiona, tears freely flowing as she kisses her brother’s heads comfortingly.

Ian squints at the cattle through the darkness, noting their sudden calm. It’s so… _strange._ It’s nonsensical.

He blinks rapidly, and stands without thinking. “I’ll round up the herd.”

He ambles slowly towards the grazing animals that had just wreaked havoc on his whole world, unable to put the puzzle pieces together in his head, somehow feeling eyes all over him. Some palpable presence lurking in the shadows of the hills across the way.

But there’s no one there.

  



	2. A Very Beautiful Corpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.”

**Berlin, 1932**

Mickey still enjoys his solitude after all these years. It’s not that he doesn’t know any others of his kind. Even his own birth sister, Amanda, is like him… unhuman… superhuman… whatever it is when there’s an absence of humanity in a still animated body that appears to be otherwise like any common Homo sapiens. _Previously_ human. Now dead and walking. He’s known plenty like him, but prefers being on his own. He and Amanda… _Mandy_ —it’s strange to think of her informally now, as it’s been so long since they last rendezvoused—used to meet up once a decade, but they haven’t seen each other since the turn of the century, which they’d spent in Istanbul when it was still the capital of the Ottoman Empire. They’d even embarked on an excursion up to Transylvania for laughs, but stopped before they ventured too far into their native land, born in Poland, which during their human time had become Austria, and was now Soviet Ukraine. But they couldn’t be around one another for too terribly long before they started picking at each other, and inevitably some huge fight would break out, and they’d have to part ways again. He kind of misses her if he’s honest.

And he’s never felt the need to turn any humans, either. Not since… god, it had been 117 years since he’d done that. The one and only time. It hadn’t exactly gone well. The experience didn’t leave him anxious to try it again. And besides, he hadn’t come across any particularly special humans in all this time anyway. None that he could remotely fathom being around on a regular basis. None that he would want to be bonded to in that intimate a way. None that could come close to comparing to…

He hasn’t thought about the farm boy in a very long time, he realizes. It’s strange, because he used to think about him all the time. He used to search for him everywhere he went. Sometimes, he’d even feel vague traces of him lingering… known that he’d been there recently, but also that he was already gone. Like a ghost. Following his progeny around the globe had been an exercise in futility, so after a century of bearing no fruit, he’d finally ceased.

No, he doesn’t want to become a maker ever again. It isn’t for him. He isn’t cut out for it. _Clearly_.

So Mickey is a consummate loner. Eternal in his freedom to be with himself. Ultimate independence. Bachelor of the year, after year, _after year_. Etcetera. That is his life.

Like most of his kind, he travels a lot. He may stay put for some years at a time in one place or another, but he likes to keep moving. There are many reasons for and benefits to it. One being that it’s great to see the world. No one could have predicted that a poor Ukrainian boy from some no name family of no consequence would be in the position to charter boats, and trains, and now aeroplanes to any destination he fancied. He gets to be anywhere he wants to be at any time. What’s not to like? Another reason, perhaps more important in the grand scheme of things, is that it helps avoid the kind of scrutiny that begets detection and persecution.

With the unnatural way his kind tends to disturb the very atmosphere around themselves, aroused suspicions are not uncommon. One has to know when the time is right to flee before curiosity leads to investigation, and evidence leads to condemnation. By some divine intervention he doesn’t quite believe in, he’s never been chased out of town with pitchforks, and no irrational mobs have attempted to lynch him. At his age, that takes a certain amount of savvy.

It’s best to keep the hunting grounds as fresh as possible. That’s one of his guiding principles.

And that is why he’s come to Berlin. That, and people have been hinting at him that he would enjoy its “vices” for years now. When one is a man (or some approximation of a man) who prefers the company of other men, one must become artful in both sending and receiving signals of such persuasions. As someone born smack dab in the middle of the 18th century, the 20th century is much easier to master in that regard. There are havens and hideaways tucked away in tiny corners of the world. One merely has to look for them. Then there are certain cities that are like hubs for heathens. Less dangerous to “experiment” in. More freeing to explore to the fullest extent.

Berlin is the capital of them all, so they say. So here he is, finally. Years later than he should have been, but at least he’s made it before it’s gone. He’s gotten good at reading historical signs, and he knows bad things are coming.

He's been in town all of three days, and been in nightclubs at all hours, both large and small, bright and shiny or dimly lit. All catering to every kind of misfit he doesn’t mind being associated with. So far he has fared well. Hunting, feeding, glamouring.

He expects tonight to go no differently. He picks a popular spot for highbrow well-to-doers, donning posh duds and a regal air. Sometimes he likes it down in the gutter, sometimes halfway in between, but tonight this is the part he’ll play. Wearing different hats on a whim is part of the fun of being immortal. You don’t have to stay in any boxes at all. You can sample every one you dare.

He discreetly slips in through a backdoor that the musicians use to load and unload instruments. He enjoys coming and going undetected, so he’s never been one for grand entrances. He sort of has a thing for just _appearing_. But as soon as he’s inside, the air feels thick. The way it feels when someone like him is already there. Not just someone… someone close to him. Someone of his blood.

_Mandy?_

His eyes dart around, searching for that palest of pale skin, pointed chin, severe cheekbones, and stark raven hair framing the deepest of frowns.

What he finds instead would stop his heart from beating if it could still do such a thing. He feels his already cold body go icy with a million tiny pinpricks, his extremities dancing with the phantom pain of total numbness. His nose flares with the effort to catch that old familiar scent through the large roomful of co-mingling human odors as his crystal blue eyes zero in on the carefree laughing face he’d spent a small eternity missing and desperately trying to recover. He’d never even seen a person in all his years that had hair that exact shade of glowing copper. And it looks even crisper now. Everything about him does.

For it is Ian. _His_ Ian. In the flesh. Yet more beautiful than ever, for he is transformed. Mickey had never gotten the chance to see him fully turned. His handsomeness has been magnified ten or twentyfold.

Mickey gazes transfixed as Ian charms all those around him. Specifically, a party of young men, practically boys really, that he’s clearly trying to lure somewhere private eventually. There’s a sharp stab of jealousy that rips through him thinking of all the years, _decades_ , worth of conquests surely under Ian’s belt, but also a kind of admiration and a desire to see him in action. How Ian goes about it… captures them… enthralls them… overcomes them. He wonders if they have the same style and technique.

But no, Ian should not be among fine dandies and half-naked harlots without him. They should never have parted. Mickey never should have done what he did.

Of course once he’d stopped looking for Ian, after a literal century, that’s when he’d finally found him. He wonders if he would have stopped looking ages ago he would’ve found him sooner. Maybe they’d both still have ended up here in this place, on this night, but together. Doing the very same things they were each doing separately, but as a team.

He’s only been staring at Ian for a few moments, though it feels like hours, he’s been so starved to see that countenance. To know for sure that he was okay. He always figured he’d have felt it if Ian had perished, or heard it through the grapevine, but he could never be completely positive. And now he is. Finally. It is such a relief. And it’s precisely in that moment of gratitude that Ian’s deep green eyes lock onto his through the crowd.

Time stands still for the two of them. And for a nanosecond, Ian seems happy. Surprised to the bone, but gratified. It’s all over no sooner than it started, though, as Ian’s smiling face instantaneously transforms into a screwed up picture of pure unadulterated hatred.

He instinctually knows that Ian is going to bolt, and Mickey starts toward him without even thinking. And suddenly he’s measuredly making his way out the front doors, and down the streets, searching. He catches the smallest whiff of his scent, slightly altered, but just the same enough for Mickey to recognize it. Like the times he’s been lucky enough to travel to a city Ian had recently vacated. There were a handful of times he’d been so close. But the timing was just skewed enough that it didn’t end up mattering at all.

He power walks to the end of the road, not daring to use his real faculties so out in the open, despite the late hour. Berlin doesn’t really sleep. He traces that faint odor down a couple alleyways, to no avail. It peters out eventually, and Mickey figures Ian must’ve taken to the rooftops.

But no matter. Ian’s here. He’d laid eyes on him. He knows Mickey’s around and that he wants to see him. Something deep inside Mickey calls out for his return. All he can do is hope Ian will heed the request. That he will come back to him.

  


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**Shropshire, 1810**

He’s really not sure why he continues to go by the name of Mikhailo Milkovich. He imagines it’s pure laziness. He should have better sense after 32 years of being what he is. He’s seen it all a few a times over by now. And when he says _all_ , he really does mean _all_. He’s seen things no man should see—and done a few of those things himself. He’s become pretty smart about the world and human nature, yet he’s still calling himself by his Old World name from another life entirely. Maybe it’s just the only thing he has to hold onto at all anymore in terms of self. Maybe he’s married to the name of a father he loathed out of some carried over sense of honor and tradition for his roots. Pathetic.

Technically, he is already 57 years old. If you count up both lives together from the moment of his human birth and all. He’s reached that median age of life expectancy in England. Of course he looks merely in his prime, and ripe for marriage and all those social conventions people obligate others to lean into. And he can’t actually die. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He _can_ die, it’s just that he’s really really fucking hard to kill. So long as some stray beams of sunlight don’t collectively hit his bare skin all at once, and he doesn’t get impaled through the heart with a large sharp object, and no one chops his head off with a scythe or a guillotine, he’s pretty much indestructible. Given his immense strength, unfathomable speed, and cunning instincts, those things would be very difficult to accomplish.

He hasn’t returned to Clun in decades, but he and his sister had agreed that this is where they should meet after separating nearly eight years previous. She’d picked the nearest even sounding number, and said they’d go back to that godforsaken poky little castle and see what plans they wanted to see through in the coming small batch of years.

The townspeople all believe the estate to be their ancestral property, inherited as a birthright. This is categorically untrue, but Mandy had worked a bit of the old magic on some aging fool she’d preyed upon when they were merely in their undead infancy, and the glamour had lasted long enough to circulate the knowledge they wanted circulated. Everyone already steered clear of them and the place for being naturally spooky and unsettling, but they needed their claim there to be strong if they were to keep it. The reality is that they’d stolen it from the man that had bought them from their father in their youth. They weren't called slaves, or indentured servants, but they certainly didn’t work for wages, and the houses Mr. Ezra Blackburn owned were not without plentiful dark secrets.

One of which would lead them to become what they now are. It was a hard life they’d led, not devoid of pain or neglect, and the horrors they discovered in the English countryside, seemingly so idyllic on the surface, only resulted in that everlasting plunge into blood-soaked night.

He and Mandy had gotten their revenge on Blackburn and his cohorts, though. Had made them pay for many evil deeds and left them to rot. It had been very liberating.

It did, however, leave them without makers at a young age. Hell, they could still be considered babies within their first 50 years, some would even say the first 100. The more ancient the being, the more condescending and strange they are about the young and the modern. Mickey and Mandy had pretty much raised each other in their new life after life, just as they had done in their real, human life. Being undead feels very much unreal most of the time. It is like they are bending all the rules of the known universe. Outside the bounds of biology and scientific understanding. It is as if any physical properties can be manipulated, and so it is almost like being in another dimension. Some wavelength indiscernible to human senses. They dance outside the natural realm, and that state is always felt as if apart from the living.

He’s not sure when he began watching the scrappy family of orphans down the road going about their daily lives. He must’ve been wandering the meadows on one of those misty afternoons where the sun was too clouded over to be a threat or a nuisance, and he’d been roused earlier than usual by the tingling promise of near-daylight… the nearest he could get now.

They remind him of the families back home, he supposes. Not really of his own, because they were hard and didn’t really look out for one another, but of others he’d been envious of as a child. Laughing sons and daughters running around, but still completing their chores, still filthy with working class grit. Somehow full of life and love, despite nothing ever coming easy.

Sometimes he gets obsessed with these concepts of humanity that now elude him, but he’s never fixated on a human family before. He’s never even really fixated on just one human before. But as much as he observes the Gallaghers from afar, he spends a disproportionate amount of that time fascinated by Ian, a middle child with vibrant red hair that’s always on top of his work. He’d learned their surname from overhearing village talk, but he’d learned their first names by straining his ears to hear their words to each other.

It’s supremely stupid to feel an attraction to someone so young. 19 is nothing. Maybe if Mickey were actually a 25-year-old, it would be perfectly reasonable. But he’s not. If he were still properly alive, he’d be an old man, lecherous and depraved. Wanting to suck up the youth of some naive teenager. He can’t want some boy. He can’t do anything about some boy. He’s worried about what would happen if he dared to get close enough to touch or speak to some boy. He’s gotten better at controlling his hunger, but the bloodlust still has the ability to overpower him sometimes. Ian is just an idiot human farm boy with nothing to truly offer Mickey but his flesh and beauty. There could be nothing to really say to one another. To really even see eye to eye on. There couldn’t be a more wildly different being on this Earth when you really thought about it.

Mickey keeps his distance, because it’s the right thing to do. And he doesn’t do the right thing very often, but he tries to when he feels it’s worth it.

He keeps his distance for Ian’s sake. So he can remain this carefree country dolt with his simple life of work and reward, and his human frailty. He can remain in the light, and have all those normal things considered good in the eyes of society.

He keeps his distance until, one day, he can’t.

Dusk has just fallen, and he’s making his way down the hill slowly, like molasses, really. A challenge to himself in controlling his movements. It’s fun to go as fast as he can, but sometimes it can be a trip to just barely move centimeter by centimeter, pushing the power down, rather than ramping it up. Then suddenly in the distance, a tell-tale rumbling begins, and his hyper-hearing ears prick up, straining across the distance to intuit what is happening.

“Carl! Liam! Get out of there!”

He recognizes Ian’s agitated voice immediately, and takes off at full speed through trees and across grass, a field of wheat, over a stone wall, a couple of wooden fence hurdles.

And then he’s there. Ian’s screaming for help, face full of impotent terror, and both young Gallagher boys are in his arms, not stirring and covered in blood.

He’s surprised how easy it is to suppress his thirst. That smell is usually very tempting, and his senses do respond as if on high alert for the possibility of a feed. He’s never drained a child, though, and he doesn’t plan on starting now. And besides, he feels strangely compelled to help. Not even the boys, so much as Ian.

So stupid.

“Move! Move!” Mickey shouts.

Before he can even consider the implications or repercussions, he slices his own wrist open and leans over Carl at just the right angle to shield himself from Ian’s view, allowing his blood to flow into the boy’s mouth. He doesn’t overdo it. Just the right amount, then he moves on to Liam.

He watches the life force rush back into them, and sits back taking in their collective confusion.

He sees many different emotions go through Ian’s face. Emotions he didn’t think a mere farm boy could possibly contain or access. Emotions that make him even more desirable.

“How?” Ian whispers, locking eyes with Mickey for one brief, glorious moment. He’d never allowed Ian to see him before.

Mickey is spared having to say anything by the hectic and sentimental arrival of the eldest sister. He hastily cuts across the land to the hilly brush on the other side of the road. He looks for the cattle and sends calming vibrations toward them, appreciating it when they heed. Then he waits to watch Ian collect them, rounding them back to their pen. He works alone reinforcing the wooden posts and tightly roping both the latch and the hinges of the gate. Mickey watches as he goes around to each post and surveys for any weaknesses. Then he looks back toward the field where the wild mare is still grazing, and squares his shoulders before heading over to bring her back.

He watches still as Ian stables her securely, certain that he must be exhausted by all the added exertion of the day. He finds a tall tree to climb and watches the boy get ready for bed. He’s surprised that he leaves a candle lit to read by, staying up a full hour, paging through a couple chapters of something.

Mickey comes back the next night, and the next. He watches Ian read under a tree at sundown, until it’s too dark to continue. Watches him argue with his older brother about how terrible he’s been at training the mare, demanding he hire a professional if he can’t handle it. Watches him care for his little sister, who is sick and mostly stays inside. They make up stories together and draw pictures of their fantasies.

He does all this from the shadows, at a distance, unseen. And sometimes Ian will turn to gaze out into the cover of darkness, seeming to look right at him, or _through_ him. But Mickey knows that’s impossible.

A few nights later, the desire to feed gets to be visceral, so Mickey goes out on the hunt. He’s in an alleyway near the tavern, about to settle in and eke out a tasty drunk, when who should stumble across his path but Ian Gallagher.

His eyes go wide when Ian sees who he bumped into. “The Milkovich boy,” he gasps.

“Uh, you can just call me Mickey.”

“Mickey!” Ian says gleefully. His smile is wide and his eyes are droopy. He’s obviously at least tipsy, if not heavily intoxicated. “I’m Ian!”

He almost laughs, almost rolls his eyes, but instead he calmly replies, “I know.”

Ian reaches out and grabs him by the arms forcefully, looking deep into his eyes with a sudden seriousness. “Thank you, Mickey. For what you did. I… don’t know what you did, but thank you. I won’t tell.”

“Tell what?” he asks.

Ian just giggles and shakes his head, eyes back to being unfocused and glassy. “I know you watch me.”

That takes Mickey aback. He hides himself well, and his senses being so keen, he doesn’t venture very close when he’s acting the voyeur. “What do you mean?”

Ian shrugs, swaying with the breeze. “I can feel it.”

A palpable shiver runs down Mickey’s spine.

“Ian!” they hear someone calling from around the corner. Mickey recognizes the voice as Philip’s.

Ian giggles again, and stumbles toward his brother’s yell.

Mickey decides right then and there that he needs to go away again.

  
  



	3. You Shall Come to My Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  “I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.”

**Shropshire, 1812**

Mickey Milkovich had disappeared from Ian’s life just as quickly as he’d entered it, slinking back into the shroud of shadows from whence he’d emerged two years previous.

Ian had even broken his promise to Fiona in the weeks after his last encounter with the enchanter, and had gone on more than one search of the grounds of Castle Clun to see what he could see. But the grounds had been quite desolate, with no signs of life lingering. A palpable chill could be felt just walking the perimeter of the stone structure. Mickey, along with his sister that Ian had never met, appeared to have fled once more, and no one in town had even the slightest hint of information regarding where they may have gone. They’d never contracted anyone for jobs on the estate, and no servants had ever come to town on their behalves for shopping and the like. It was almost as if they’d been dreams, or phantoms that had evaporated into the ether.

For some reason, it ate at Ian still. He’d barely said two words to the mysterious man, and half of those had been when he was in a state of total inebriation, but he couldn’t help the allure. There was no way for him to get his mind off of what Mickey had done that fateful day when the horse (they’d since named Ellie) had frightened the cattle. Ian may be undereducated in the traditional sense, but he’s no fool. He’s also never been particularly superstitious in the ways which were expected of simple country folk. Yet, there was no explanation for how his brothers had been saved from a certain mortal fate by their intervening savior, outside of some strange magick.

Ian still hadn’t been able to fully wrap his mind around it, even after all this time. What he had witnessed… sort of… his brain had been half-broken, and he was certain now that Mickey had purposely shielded his vision from exactly what it was he’d done over the boys’ bodies… it had been some type of sorcery… straight out of the legend of Merlin.

He’s turned his desperate search for answers into a kind of game that he can play with Debbie. She’s always loved ancient mythology in particular, so they started there. Any fables containing references to powers wielded by men who are by all other descriptions completely normal, they note in their own journal which has become a kind of history of supernatural folklore. It helps distract from Debbie’s downturn in health on the best days. There are some when she’s not up for any of it, and sometimes Ian worries that the subject matter is a bit too morbid given the state of things. Yet, a 10-year-old standing on the precipice of the great beyond is allowed her own decisions when it comes to mood setting and coping mechanisms.

Ian befriends a retired history professor at the local tavern and gets his hands on much more materials. The man collects periodicals of all sorts, and lets Ian borrow them along with the books in his vast collection that spills out of his home library and onto steps, tables, and shelves all around his humble cottage.

Ian and Debbie have written over 400 pages of notes by the time Mickey returns.

It’s a grey, rainy day, not so much pouring, as just steadily drizzling. Ian’s shivering in his boots as he works alone in the field farthest from the house. It’s close to sundown, and he just has a few more more perches of wheat to cut. His shirt is soaked right through and he keeps having to pause and wipe at his eyes. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears a low voice behind him.

“Hello, Ian Gallagher.”

He’s not quite sure he doesn’t shriek from the shock of suddenly not being alone. He definitely yelps in further surprise when he sees who the voice belongs to.

“Mickey Milkovich!”

He even drops his scythe to the ground without meaning to.

Mickey’s mouth twitches, and it’s the closest thing to a smile that Ian’s ever seen him wear. “Careful with that thing. It’s dangerous.”

Ian’s still gaping like a simpleton. “I’m… not wielding it like a weapon.”

“I should hope not, farm boy.”

“How are you here?” Ian asks dumbly.

“Well, I started on my property. Walked with my own two legs through the woods, and ended up here. Saw you from the path.”

“I just mean… you were gone. I haven’t seen you in two years.”

“Is that so?” Mickey’s definitely almost smirking at him. “You’ve kept track of the amount of time since you last saw me? It doesn’t feel as long as all that.”

“Yes, well… I’m sure you were off doing interesting things. I’ve just been here. Not a whole lot new happens around here, if you remember.”

“That I do remember. It’s one of the reasons I rarely return.”

Ian looks down at his feet, seeming to recall how cold he is. “Must be nice.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything in response, and when Ian looks up, he finds him staring at him very intently.

“What is it?” Ian asks, wiping his face with his forearm, then bending down to retrieve his forgotten tool.

“Nothing. I apologize… I’m interrupting your work. You must be hungry.”

Ian chuckles. “And freezing.” He starts cutting again. “But no need to apologize. I can’t believe you’re here again.”

“Why?”

Ian glances at him, finding that intense gaze still fixed firmly on his every move. He shrugs. “I guess you’ve become some kind of mythical creature in my mind. Thought I’d never see you again. Never figure it out.”

When he next looks up, those intense blue eyes are even harder, as if they can see beyond Ian’s physical body or something; transcending space and time. “Figure what out?”

“You know what.” He continues with his task until it is finally done.

The next time he looks up, no one is there.

Ian isn’t worried about Mickey’s disappearing act this time. He knows he’s going to see him again. And soon. He’s started to feel as if he’s being watched after again, like he had felt before Mickey left Clun after they ran into each other near the pub. That should be an unsettling, unwanted feeling, but instead it’s somehow comforting.

He’s not surprised at all when the following week, Mickey appears near the same spot as before, while Ian’s alone in the same field, nearly ready to head inside for the day.

“Did your sister return with you?” asks Ian, as if picking up a conversation already begun.

“Not this time,” Mickey replies without pause. “Why?”

“I never met her.”

“And you would like to?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. You’re both so… mysterious. I told you it’s boring around here.”

“Yes, well, Mandy—Amanda—is currently gallivanting around Scandinavia.”

“Is that where you've been the last couple of years?”

“No. I was mostly in India, and some other island countries in South East Asia.”

“Wow! My sister, Debbie, would love to hear stories about that. She has a deep appreciation for Indian culture. She’s read a lot of books.”

“That’s nice.”

“She’s sick. Doesn’t meet a lot of new people, but maybe she’d like to meet you.”

“Maybe.”

Ian turns around for one second, and Mickey’s gone again. It’s the same every time. Apparently, he’s not into goodbyes, and he always decides when an interaction is over. Luckily, Ian doesn’t take offense easily.

It continues like that for weeks; more than a month, less than two. Ian always makes sure to leave some task or another out in _their_ field for the end of the day. It was the time of year for rotating out the wheat crops for turnips, so there was legitimate extra care to be paid. Mickey never offers to help in the manual labor, just watches Ian with those same penetrating eyes, and only ever says short, somewhat cryptic things as they converse. Ian’s become comfortable enough to just ramble on and on about this or that until Mickey grows tired enough of the topic to wander off again.

It doesn’t escape Ian’s attention that he never sees hide nor hair of Mickey during regular daylight hours. No carriage ever comes from his property during the day, and it would have to pass them to get to town. No one else in the family even knows the man is in Shropshire at all. It is more than unusual for a man to be living alone in a castle, small as it may be, without any seeming sources of basic necessities, goods, or services. Ian’s kept an ear out when he’s in town, and there hasn’t been any chatter at all about the Milkoviches the way there’d been when they’d arrived before. No whispers in the market. No gossip from the solicitor. No speculation in the tavern.

Talking with Mickey regularly doesn’t make him any less of an enigma to Ian. If anything, the questions only continue to mount.

“Would you like to meet the friend that started all this… investigation?” Ian asks Debbie one afternoon. They’ve just eaten lunch, and she’d read aloud to him about necromancy from some tome about witchcraft. Fiona would probably have his head if she found out the things he’d let their littlest sister get into as of late.

Debbie beamed at him, her face pallid, yet animated. “You mean he returned?”

“Yes.” Ian nods.

“Ian! When?”

“A while back. I didn’t want to say anything until I talked to him some more. He’s a bit… strange.”

She giggled. “I should think so. If he’s what all this has been about. He wants to meet me?”

“I haven’t asked him yet. I wanted to ask you first. You haven’t met anyone new in a long time, and like I said, he’s odd. Don’t want to frighten you.”

“Is he frightening?”

“I don’t think he is. But… there’s something, I don’t know, _dark_ about him? Well, it’s this whole mystery we can’t get to the bottom of.”

“But you like him? You called him a friend.”

“Yes. I do like him. Very much. He’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known. Maybe that’s why. I’m not sure.”

“And the whole magick thing.”

Ian chuckles. “Yes, well. I suppose I’ve been a bit obsessed. But we talk every day, Debs. Not for long, or about anything important, but… I would trust him with you.”

Debbie nods. “Okay. How’re we going to get him past Fiona and Lip?”

“Something tells me he’d know a way.”

“Have you figured out what he is, then?”

“I don’t know. I think… maybe. But it’s very far-fetched.”

“Everything in our journal is far-fetched. If he really brought Carl and Liam back to life, there’s no rational answer, is there?”

He shakes his head. “No, there isn’t.”

“So what’s your guess then?”

“Remember when we read about Jure Grando of Istria? And those Serbian peasants who came back from the dead about 80 years ago?”

Her eyes get wide as saucers and she gasps. “No!”

“Maybe.”

“How can he be good then? He wouldn’t be a friend.”

“All these folk tales are sensationalized. They came from widespread panic. The truth is most likely not so morbid.”

“You can’t know that, Ian. You must be careful. Evil things can be duplicitous, remember? That’s the point of half these stories. ‘The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.’”

“You think I’d be attracted to and taken in by the devil?”

“I think you’re just a stupid boy.”

“And you are just a little girl who doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. Do you want to meet him, or not?”

“Well… he’s not much of a risk to me, seeing as I’ll be dead soon anyway.”

He hates when she says things like that, even though he’s actually grateful that she’s not in denial about it. “Debs,” he begins, not knowing how to come back to such a statement.

“It’s okay, Ian. Just my gallows humor.”

“You’re too smart for a child, you know that?”

“That’s what happens when you’re a shut-in for half your life.”

When Ian sees Mickey the next day, he cuts right to the chase.

“I know what you are.” He watches the man stiffen and widen his icy eyes. “I think.”

“Oh?” Mickey pauses. “What am I?”

Ian just smiles and continues his work. In lieu of answering, after a long stretch of silence, he asks a question. “Would you come to meet Debbie tonight?”

Mickey’s as silent as the grave, and when Ian looks up, that hawkish stare is boring into him hard as ever.

“Please?” adds Ian.

He’s surprised when Mickey immediately acquiesces.

It’s not uncommon for Ian to sit up with Debbie on nights when she has trouble sleeping, nor for him to fall asleep in her chambers. Her room occupies the corner of the second floor opposite the boys’ room, with the best window in the house, outside of the sitting room downstairs. It has the luxury of a cushioned seat built into its ledge. Mickey comes through this window with an alarming lack of noise. And neither Ian, nor Debbie comment on the fact that no tree grows near said window, and no trellis adorns the side of the house.

“Hello,” says Mickey mildly, with a passive nonchalance right after stepping down from the sill.

“Hi,” his sister replies with those big eyes again. She’s lost a lot of weight in recent months, reduced to a tiny slip of a thing, so that even her small bed looks big around her. She pulls the covers up closer to her chin.

“No need to be scared, child,” Mickey admonishes, noting her body language. Then he smiles for the first time in Ian’s presence. With teeth, even. Almost. A hint of teeth. But a definite full upward curve of the mouth.

“I’m not scared,” she retorts defiantly.

“No?” he asks curiously.

“No. People do not scare me anymore.”

Mickey actually laughs, and Ian is almost aghast. Normally, he’d be laughing too.

“That is wise,” says Mickey. “Or perhaps not.”

He's always speaking in half-riddles, Ian swears.

“I’ll never grow old enough to be considered wise,” answers Debbie.

Mickey laughs again, whilst Ian has to look away to keep from weeping.

“Forgive me. Your terrible misfortune is not funny. You deserve to grow up.”

“It is a little funny. Apparently I do not.”

Mickey scoffs. “Never think that. Most people in this world rarely get what they deserve. Trust me.”

“You blame it on bad luck, or what?”

“I’m not sure I believe in luck, either, Miss Deborah. At the end of the day, I think it must all be… random. No rhyme or reason. But what happened to you… what is happening… is unfair.”

“Do you not believe in God?”

“Well…” Mickey glances at Ian then, as if asking for permission to blaspheme. Or perhaps to just speak plainly to a dying child. Ian just vaguely raises a shoulder. “I believe in searching for answers, and never being satisfied that I’ve found them in full.”

“Interesting,” she replies, gazing at Ian then as well, a small smirk on her face. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think it were some kind of approval.

In a way, he supposes it was, because Mickey starts coming into Debbie’s room a couple times a week. Only when Ian is present, and when it’s obvious that she’s not having too bad a night. Mickey always seems to know when the timing is right.

Something about Mickey makes her come alive more in his presence, even as Ian can see her slipping away. Lately, her cough has been terrible. And there’s been too much blood.

Despite Ian never having brought up his suspicions about Mickey’s nature to the man’s face before, he ultimately plucks up the courage, because he has a burning question. A big idea. A favor that could potentially change everything. And he needs to ask it before it’s too late.

He senses Mickey approaching one evening when he’s finishing up in the third field, and lays down his tools, heading over to hop the low stone wall near the edge of the woods to wait for him to arrive.

“Yes?” Mickey asks when he comes to a stop in front of him. It must be obvious Ian wants something, as he never waits for him like this.

“Remember when I told you that I think I know what you are?”

Mickey looks away. He never looks away from Ian. “Yes.”

“I’ve sort of put some of the clues together. Debbie and I… we kind of started this investigation after what happened two years ago, and we chronicled a history of sorts… of the occult. We read so many stories about supernatural abilities and practitioners of magick. And since you’ve been back, I’ve gotten to learn more about you, and your habits. I know so little, but I think it’s enough.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“Well, for one, you only come to me at night. Or right before near-dark at best. If the sky is not yet black, it is grey. Never blue. Never sunny. And you live completely alone up there. No servants. No trips to town. I’ve never seen you with any food or supplies. The townspeople don’t even really know you’re living there right now. Like you’re living in secret. And your ways… the energy around you, and your estate… it’s all very strange, isn’t it? Otherworldly? Unexplainable? Then of course, there’s whatever wizardry you performed that day when Carl and Liam both seemed to be dead in my arms. You healed them. They were broken and they should never have risen, but you did something over their bodies, and they were resurrected. But they didn’t become like you. They still walk in daylight, and they play like children, and the only side effect I could see was that they started eating bloody red meat like it was candy for a while.”

“And what conclusion did you draw?”

Ian took a deep breath, trembling slightly as he looked into Mickey’s deep eyes. “Vampyre.” He searched for any sign of confirmation or just recognition on his face, but as usual, it was akin to a porcelain mask. “Or do your people call it _upyr_?”

That did cause a slight twitch in his brow. “What do you know of my people?”

“Vampyres, or Ukrainians?” asks Ian with a small smile.

Mickey still doesn’t crack. “You traced my lineage?”

“Well, no. Maybe if we were in a bigger city with a proper library, I could’ve done that. I just guessed based on your surname. I know a man in town who studies ancestry for fun. He narrowed down the region and race.”

Mickey nodded. “Born in Poland. Before Koliyivshchyna. Before the Habsburg’s made it Austria.”

Ian gasps and falls back onto the short stone wall behind him. “But that was... that was 40 years ago.”

“I may be slightly older than I look,” Mickey admits.

“Oh my god.” Ian’s breathing gets heavy and his vision blurs. “Oh my god, so it’s true! You are… _are you_?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t even know exactly what I am. I do, but I don’t. There is no known explanation to offer. There is no one name for it.”

“Did you die?” It comes out as but a whisper. “Are you dead?”

Mickey nods only once. “Yes.”

“Oh my god,” Ian says again. His head is spinning. He thought he knew. Thought he’d be okay with this, but he'd mostly expected to be laughed right back into seeing reason. Yet Mickey has never looked more serious, and no one could be that good an actor. “But _how_?”

“It is a long story. Maybe one day I will tell it to you.”

“You’re dead. But you…” He reaches a tentative hand out. He’s never touched Mickey before, not his skin at least. They’ve rarely even really come closer than five feet of one another. “You’re real?”

Mickey does quirk half a smile then, stepping forward. “Very much so.”

He stops just short of Ian’s outstretched hand, and Ian holds his breath for a moment, then rises. Mickey takes another small step, and suddenly Ian is touching the skin of his cheek. It’s an odd sensation… it’s soft, yet tough and unyielding; cold and still. Like a perfect statue chiseled by a great master. It doesn’t feel the same as the live flesh that covers bones and organs, and veins circulating blood. It’s disarming, but he keeps his fingers there anyway, perhaps for too long.

“Are you not worried about divulging your secrets to me?” Ian asks once he’s regained the ability to speak. “You won’t hurt me, will you?”

Mickey chuckles quietly. “If I wanted you to forget all this, I could make it so. It wouldn’t require hurting you.”

“No!” cries Ian, retracting his hand. “Please. You can’t! I… haven’t asked you what I need to ask. And I wouldn’t want you to anyway. I won’t tell a soul.”

Mickey sighs, but it’s a queer sound. Less breathy than it should be. “I know what it is you’re going to ask me.”

Ian blinks a few a times, at a loss. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. You confronted me plainly about something you’re afraid to know. You couldn’t be sure how I would react, but you didn’t care. You did it anyway. It’s something very important to you. Something life-and-death perhaps?”

Ian’s heart rate speeds up, and he gulps thickly. “Yes, well… you’ve come to know Debbie quite well in your own way. I can tell you’re fond of her. There would be no reason for you to keep visiting her otherwise. She's been going downhill fast this year, and I’m afraid the next turn will be for the worst. We’ve all been prepared to lose her for a long time now, but if there were something I could do and I didn’t try, well, I couldn’t live with myself. So you know that I must ask you to heal her. The way you did Liam and Carl.”

Mickey shakes his head slowly in lament. “That’s not how it works, Ian.”

“What do you mean? My brothers were at death’s door, and you delivered them from it. Can you not do the same for her?”

“If it were so simple, of course I would. She is a delightful child. She will be gone too soon. But the way I healed your brothers… that wouldn’t work for her. Those were recently sustained injuries. They were still on the surface, and could be quickly undone with just a small amount of my blood. But as for your sister… her body has been slowly decaying over time. There’s too much damage. A small amount of my blood would not cure her.”

Ian’s throat clenches and his gut twists. “There has to be something you can do. Surely there’s a way.”

“There is nothing that can be done that I would be willing to do. I’m sorry.”

Ian steps forward and grabs onto him, noticing how stiff he feels through his clothes. Immovable, like granite. He shakes him in frustration, but he’s certain no part of the man jostles or gives. “Why? _Why_ would you not do it if you could? What are you saying? I’ll do anything. Please! Just save her!”

“You have to trust me. You wouldn’t want that for her. She wouldn’t want it for herself, even. She is ready to go. She’s at peace with her fate.”

“No!” Ian yelps. “She’s only a child, damn you! She’s had to endure so much suffering. You can ease it. She can live!”

“There are things about me that you do not understand. You would not want her to be made like me. She would have to die anyway, and she would never be the same afterward. The life I lead… it is not for a child. It is not for the faint of heart at all.”

He’s beating his fists against Mickey’s chest before he can think better of it, and hot tears are rolling freely down his face. “Save her, you bastard! Why won’t you save her?”

There are no words spoken then for quite a while. It feels like Ian’s punching a wall, but he’s half out of his mind with grief, and there’s no other outlet for his overemotional energy. Mickey doesn’t retreat, nor make any attempt to stop him, and once Ian’s tired himself out, he slumps against the man most inappropriately as he sobs helplessly.

When he finally calms, Mickey speaks quietly over his shoulder, “Listen, I cannot save your sister. It’s an impossible request. Maybe one day you’ll come to understand why. But there _is_ something I can do to ease her passing. I can make it painless for her. It would require me being in the room, though. Which means the rest of your family would have to be kept out. I trust you, but I cannot put the same trust in all of your siblings. I can’t risk losing the property here. It is an asset that will become more valuable over time.”

Ian sniffles, pulling back from Mickey’s rigid collarbone, and wiping his face. “You can really do that? Make it so it doesn’t hurt?”

Mickey nods once, almost a small bow.

“But how will we know for sure… when it will happen?”

“Leave it to me. I can sense those things. I’ll come by every night to get a feel for her. Help her sleep so she doesn’t have to suffer while she waits for the night to come.”

“And what if it doesn’t happen at night?”

“I think we can make it so. Once she’s close, I can just help her to… let go.”

A fresh tear leaks from Ian’s eye, but he nods in agreement. “Okay. You promise?”

“I promise.”

Ian nods again. “Okay.” He turns toward the house, then glances back. “I’m sorry for hitting you. And crying in your arms. That was… wrong. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He walks away with an emptiness he didn’t know it was possible to feel.

It’s only a few more nights before Mickey informs him that his family should say their goodbyes tomorrow. He feels it will happen sometime then. A Thursday in late August. Ian braces himself and convinces his siblings to give up the day’s work and entertain Debbie instead. Tells Fiona and Lip he has a bad feeling. Tells them they could lose her any time now.

They try to keep their tears outside of their sister’s bedroom. Try to carry on with very brave faces as they put on little plays and puppet shows, and read aloud from her favorite books, and recount stories of their family and good times past. It’s hard to get Fiona out of the room at the end of the day, but somehow Ian manages. Asks her to have a quick rest. It hurts to lie to her about something so crucial, but it’s more important to ensure Debbie’s comfort.

As soon as the other boys and Fiona are gone, Mickey appears beside him as if he materialized out of thin air. They lock eyes briefly and exchange a quick nod of acknowledgment.

Ian doesn’t say goodbye. He can’t bear it. He stands back and watches as Mickey sits by Debbie’s side and takes her hand, gazing at her intensely until a dazed expression overtakes her face, the focus of her eyes entirely on Mickey’s, as if nothing else exists. Her wheezing breath ceases to be audible, and Ian dashes to her other side. Holds her other hand. Watches her smile serenely and just kind of… fade. It’s both slow and quick all at once.

From one second to the next, she’s gone. Like some unknowable light has gone out behind her eyes, and some essence of spirit has escaped her body.

Ian buries his head in her shoulder as he cries, and when he looks back up, Mickey is gone. He sits there a few moments longer, alone now with her body, then calls out for Fiona.

  


  
  



	4. May I Come In?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands.”

**Shropshire, 1813**  


Ian is cold towards Mickey for months on end, clearly unable to comprehend why it was impossible to fix his sister. There are so many things Ian doesn’t understand about who and what Mickey is. And how is he supposed to teach him? A stupid human boy—a man now, technically. He watches through a window from afar as the Gallaghers have a modest celebration of Ian’s 22nd birthday. A slightly melancholy affair with a plain sponge cake and Fiona playing a few songs on an old somewhat off-key spinet in the sitting room. It’s been half a year since Debbie’s death, but the pall cast over the household remains ever-present as they still adjust to her absence.

Ian hasn’t stopped talking to him altogether. He ignored his presence in the fields for a while at first, but then he slowly came around. Still, the ease he had with Mickey before is gone. There’s a constant strain of withholding. It’s the most bizarre relationship he’s ever had in his life, both before and after the change. Mickey’s been drawn in so close to Ian, but he can’t figure out what that means. What that looks like. He’s lingering here in this uninteresting place just to be near this person. He’s stuck in a state of inertia just… waiting… he’s not even sure for what.

He knows he’s attracted to Ian, of course. That’s been obvious from the first time he ever set eyes on him. But that shouldn’t mean anything. He’s seen attractive men in every place he’s ever been to. He’s even been with a good amount of them. He’s just been so restless these last few years. So idle. He burnt himself out on thrills and debauchery, and now it’s all slowed down to a crawl. He's in a slump, and all he can see is this Gallagher boy—man—human. It’s such a useless obsession.

He let himself be drawn into Ian’s tragic drama with his little sister. Let himself come to care for the girl, and watch her die. He’s seen so many humans die, but this one hit home in a way no death had since he was young. It reminded him of the ultimate futility of existence. Reinforced how fragile life is, and how it all ends in one horrific fashion or another, with no heed for who it’s happening to, or when. Even when dying isn’t gruesome, it’s still terrible to see life ripped away. You’d think he’d be immune to it by now. Think him a hypocrite for taking lives of his own at times. But Mickey’s never said he’s not an evil thing.

If Ian’s done so much research on the subject, he’s not sure why he doesn’t see that in Mickey. Why he still wants to be near him is a mystery. He’s been waiting for the day when Ian’s dam breaks again, and he bursts forth with a million questions and demands for explanations. That seems to be his way… to build up slowly… to repress all his true thoughts and feelings for as long as possible until they can’t be contained anymore. He’s simple, but fascinating.

Mickey is patient.

  


Eventually, Ian starts to come around. Mickey sees his bright smile again, and it feels like the warmest thing he has in his life. The fireside couldn’t do as good a job.

Mickey starts writing things for Ian. Essays, and letters, and poems, and all sorts. He's not sure why he feels compelled to do so, but he just goes with his instincts.

Ian starts looking at him with adoration. It’s plain as day. Right there, all over his face.

They’ve never _really_ talked about it. The attraction. The something _more_ that had always been between them. Mickey can't tell if Ian’s ever been with anyone before. Usually, that’s really easy to figure out. Body language and social behavior give away much on that score. But with Ian… he's fairly certain he’s never been with a man, but maybe he’s been with a girl. Still, Ian lives very tight-knit with his family, always busy. Never meeting any young friends in town, other than his own brother. Maybe he’s been repressed for reasons outside of his own hands.

No matter, though. Virgin or not, Mickey can’t go there. Well, virgin especially. That whole rumor about virgin blood being the tastiest or whatever, that’s just an old kind of Satanic spook story. Sex doesn’t make one impure. Blood is blood, and it is other things that may taint it. Just not essential functions of the body. But it’s not like he’s going to bite Ian anyway. He’s not going to bed him, and he’s not going to taste him. That would be going way too far. This boy wouldn’t be worth it. Once he’d had him, he’d be over it. What would the point be in bothering to let that play out?

Mickey is smarter than that.

He doesn’t say anything to push the truth out into the open. The truth of what they’re doing. Or what they want to do.

He waits. He’s not even sure what for. He’s almost positive that if Ian never makes a move, nothing will ever come of their mutual affinity.

They’re lying out in a field one night when Ian says something.

“How long?”

“How long what?” Mickey answers, playing dumb.

“When were you born and when did you become like this?”

“Are you sure you want to know? You may look at me differently.”

Ian shakes his head. “I won’t.”

“My birth… my _human_ birth… was in 1753. I was turned over 34 years ago when I was 25. I’ll be 60 soon.”

He more than half expects to see something shift in Ian’s expression. Some disdain for this partial truth. There’s so much more to it than these simple numbers. Years. Time. They mean different things to him now. But Ian’s still a human. He puts stock in these human concepts.

Ian’s expression doesn’t change, though. It’s unwavering and sincere. “That's a long time. You must have known a lot of people.”

“Yes and no,” replies Mickey. “I’ve _met_ many many people. Troves. But I haven’t _known_ a lot. And fewer have known me.”

Ian laughs softly, shaking his head.

“What?” begs Mickey.

“Nothing,” Ian laughs again. “You just always answer in these clever phrases. Half-truths wrapped in tantalizing enigmas. All your answers raise more questions.”

“It's just the way I think now. I can’t explain it. When you change, it becomes easier to do everything. Learning is especially easy. You retain all with little effort. Part of our heightened senses and instincts, I suppose. Makes it harder to come up with one simple answer for anything. I always think of all the outcomes.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Not really.”

“You ever get tired of being alive? I mean, I guess you’re not that old, but you’ve lived longer than most people do around here.”

“I don’t wish to be dead. That would be easy to accomplish if I did. I sometimes feel like it’s all too repetitive. That nothing ever really changes. I get tired of monotony, so that’s one of the reasons I’m always moving around. It’s one way I can make things change. At least for a while.”

“And you never… find people?”

“Find people?”

“You know, do you ever stay with any humans?”

“Stay? No, I don’t stay.”

“Vampyres, then?”

“Not in a long time, aside from my sister.”

“Do you ever get lonely?”

“Not in the ways you’re asking, no. I’m content with solitude.”

“But do you ever seek… companionship?”

Mickey arches an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

Ian turns his body in towards Mickey. He gulps and stays staring straight ahead.

“I mean, how many people have you…”

“Bitten?”

“I was going to say ‘been with,’ but that too.”

“Why is that relevant to you?”

Ian shakes his head nervously. “It isn’t. I’m sorry.”

Mickey’s mouth twitches. “I’m only kidding you.”

“No, you’re right, it’s impertinent.”

“Impertinent?” Mickey can’t help chuckling. “I thought we were beyond such concepts.”

“Are we?”

“You know things no one should know about me.”

“I must be very dull by comparison. I have no secrets.”

“Don’t you?”

“Are you deflecting an actual answer?”

“I’ve done a lot of things to a lot of people.”

Ian actually blushes. “How often?”

“Often enough. Different frequencies depending on my age and whereabouts.”

“And you’ve been with…?”

“With…?”

“Men?”

Mickey straightens up and meets his eye. “What do you think?”

Ian’s long eyelashes flutter. “I think you have.”

“What gives me away?”

“Just a feeling I have.”

“And you?”

“And I?”

“Have you been with any men?”

“No.”

“Women, then?”

“Definitely not.”

“Is that what you expect of me?”

“I don’t expect anything. But don’t tell me you haven’t wondered. I can read the signs.”

“Well, I've never acted on anything, have I?” reasons Mickey.

“No, you haven’t.”

“So what are you asking?”

“I was only curious.”

“Why?”

“Just forget it.”

“You tired of being a virginal farm boy?”

“And if I said yes?”

“It’s understandable, but I am not the answer. Just remember that.”

Mickey leaves then, afraid of the conversation going any further.

  


He should’ve known Ian would resort to something drastic just to get some excitement into his life. Just so he could go see somewhere new. From one week to the next, he was signed up to go off to war. He’d be guarding England’s borders from Napoleon’s armies, and hopefully not be sent into France itself, or to Spain. More than anything he hopes he won’t be sent somewhere far across the ocean. Territorial squabbles were extending to the Americas. The next few years could bring great misery to Ian.

“You’re a fool to have enlisted,” Mickey tells him.

“What else should I do? I’d like to try my hand at being useful somewhere other than this wretched patch of land.”

“You could die easily,” asserts Mickey, sparing no feelings.

“Yes, well… I could just as easily die here from something or another. This way, I get to do something important. Try to make a difference.”

Mickey snorts. “You’re nothing but another poor man’s body to the leaders of these wars. All you’ll be is a statistic on a piece of paper. An abstract sacrifice. They won’t care to even remember your name. And if you do survive, you’ll always be different.”

“Well… please, don’t mince words on my account.” Ian laughs nervously, looking slightly pale, and Mickey realizes that he’s taken his blunt honesty a step too far. He always forgets to finesse humans so as to soften the blows.

“I’m not trying to frighten you. This is just advice based on my experience.”

“Does that mean you’ve been to war?”

“No, I’ve never fought in a war, but I did grow up with it happening around me. And I’ve had many fights in other ways.”

He hates the thought of waiting and watching Ian go off and potentially die, knowing there’s no way he can follow Ian to his station and protect him. There are far too many risks, and Mickey would be just as likely to end up a casualty. He decides to leave Clun before Ian does.

He is prevented by Ian’s next request.

They’re drinking a jug of wine by a tree one night. Mickey intends for it to be the eve of his departure, but he hasn’t told Ian as much.

“Mickey?”

He really doesn’t need to ask what Ian wants. He knows what he wants. He’s been reeking of it ever since he first asked if Mickey’d ever been with men. Still, he answers him, “Yes?”

“I'm leaving soon. To battle. Don’t know when I’ll be back next. Don’t know what will happen.”

“I know.”

“There’s just… I can’t… Can you imagine how pathetic it would be if I died before I ever had sex?”

Mickey smiles sadly. “Ian, you should get to do that. You should do it now. But not with me. Your first time should be with another human. It should be warm and messy and a little bit awkward. Should be with someone your own age. Someone like you.”

Ian stubbornly shakes his head. “I don’t want to with anyone else. And where exactly would I find someone else around here before I go, anyway? Not a lot of boys running around kissing boys in this neck of the woods. I’ve no interest in women.”

“You shouldn’t want that with me.”

“Then why do you stay? Why are you always here for me if you don’t want it too? We’re nothing alike, as you always point out. Yet you come to me, and you help me, and you listen to me, and tell me things.”

“I’ll be leaving soon. And I’ll bid you a safe journey.”

Ian touches him then, and Mickey can see the fine hairs lining his pale skin stand on edge as the finger runs over the back of his cold hand.

“Mick…”

He tries not to look up into those warm green eyes, but is quite unable to resist the pull. And Ian is resting a soft hand on the side of his head, and his soft lips are grazing over Mickey’s, and it’s shocking that someone is playing this role with him. This human. Taking charge and demanding this satisfaction from him. A live boy imploring Mickey to show him things. Nice things. The _nicest_ things, really.

Ian still doesn’t get how risky this all is. He doesn’t understand the ever-present element of danger. Ian’s never truly felt fear towards him. Which could be much to his detriment. Mickey is nothing more than an omen in this human’s lifeline.

Still, Mickey doesn’t move away, or make any other attempts to end Ian’s advances. He kisses back. He feels Ian’s tongue swipe across the canines he has peeking out, and that doesn’t frighten him away. He shivers a little and leans closer to Mickey’s body.

Somehow, he melts into it. Ian pulls him in underneath waves of euphoria. Like his mouth secretes some intoxicating drug. He forgets that he’s supposed to resist this temptation. He forgets the whole list of reasons being with Ian would be wrong. He chases the softness. By the time he’s aware of himself again, they’ve rolled away from the tree and into the tall grass. Ian is between his legs, pinning him down to the earth, writhing as he continues to kiss enthusiastically. Mickey hasn’t been in this position with a human from much farther back than he can even remember.

It’s vulnerable. It’s a bad idea. But it feels so good.

Ian is the weaker being by an enormous degree, but here he is behaving as the more dominant one, and it’s undeniably sexy. Farm boy is manhandling him in the pasture. As if they’re equals.

Mickey flips them over, and holds Ian firmly to the ground, piercing him with his gaze. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ian whispers.

“Maybe you should be.”

“I trust you.”

“That's a mistake.”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Ian lunges up, but Mickey dodges him easily, not slackening his grip. “We can’t do this here, alright? Meet me tomorrow at my estate. After sundown. You can come to my chambers there.”

The redhead smiles widely. “Really? Your chambers?”

“I promise you a bed will be much more comfortable. And I will have precautions around. It’s not safe like this.”

Ian nods. “Okay. I understand.”

Mickey jumps up and off him at his own speed, and Ian blinks up aghast. “You move fast. I’ve never really seen it. Do it again?”

“It’s not a magick trick. It’s more natural for me, though. To move at a faster pace. I have to slow myself down to fit in.”

“You do everything that fast?” Ian asks, eyes wider.

Mickey snickers. “I suppose you’ll find out soon.”

And with that, Mickey takes off running at full speed.

  


The bell at the front door chimes less than an hour after he awakens the next evening. Ian looks adorably cleaner than usual, and apprehensive in a way he usually isn’t. He eyes the dim interiors warily, no doubt feeling a draft. Mickey beckons him toward his own room, where he has lit a fire for his guest’s benefit, and there are a lot more candles burning, so that the room appears more inviting. The bed is adorned in silk and velvet and fur… all of the softest materials he could assemble for comfort’s sake. For Mickey, it’s all quite romantic.

He doesn’t want to glamour Ian. He usually has to do a certain amount of it with human conquests, but Ian already knows what he is, so there’s no need to mask anything. Still, it is a good time for him to take control. If he’s not the one in control, he could spin out, and who knows what could happen to Ian. Mickey has to be the one in the driver’s seat. He has to prevent a tragedy from happening when they should be abandoned to pleasure. He secures the chamber doors, then approaches Ian with cool confidence, unbuttoning and removing his own shirt as he goes. He’s practically translucent, veins blue and obvious beneath his skin. Ian licks his lips, and Mickey deftly slips the shirt over his head too.

“Take off those muddy boots,” he orders, standing back to remove his trousers.

Ian’s breathing picks up again when he looks back toward Mickey, and he just stands there again as Mickey steps forward to continue undressing him. Once they’ve both stepped out of their pants, he immediately reaches for Ian’s dick, pumping it to hardness.

Ian gasps shakily against his cheek, and Mickey whispers, “Touch me back.”

He obliges without hesitating, taking Mickey in hand in similar fashion, and he can’t help marveling at the knowledge that this is the only cock Ian’s ever touched that wasn’t his own. That shouldn’t be enticing, but it is. He’s but a common, no-good man after all, easily excited at the prospect of being the teacher to a willing student.

Their mouths come together again at last, and Mickey’s teeth get so pointy, he’s sure to get a complaint from Ian after too long. They can sometimes get in the way.

Ian pulls back, eyes fixed on those fangs now protruding past the seam of his lips. He presses a finger to one, then lifts his lip. “What’s this all about?” His right hand is still moving below Mickey’s waist. “You want to bite me when you feel horny?”

Well… “Yes.”

Ian blinks impossibly wider. “Really?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do it. But I can’t help the teeth.”

Ian’s hand speeds up, and Mickey’s gets a little too caught up in the excitement and has to temper his own strokes. Ian is enough of a mess with just this. He walks them to the bed and lies back on it, letting Ian climb up over him.

“How do you want it?” asks Mickey.

“I have a choice?”

“Of course. What’s your preference?”

Ian gulps. “I don’t know. I suppose… I don’t know anything, so I’d like to… maybe… try it all.”

Mickey smirks. “Try it all, huh?”

“Yes. How else will I know what I like?”

Mickey pulls him down into another kiss, and wraps his legs around Ian’s middle, letting his heavy dick slide over his ass. Ian moans, and grinds himself closer to his target.

“I’ve used some oil. You can go ahead.”

“Should I just…?”

Mickey squeezes him again, nodding. “Do it.”

Ian reaches between them, taking himself in hand, and sliding up against Mickey’s hole. They look into each other’s eyes as Ian pushes in. He falls down against him, and Mickey can feel Ian’s heart beating so hard it seems to be coming out of his chest.

Mickey pushes back and waits for Ian to find his bearings. After some heavy breathing, Ian pulls back and thrusts in again, moaning, jaw slack and eyes wild. Their mouths fall together again, and Ian caresses Mickey’s sides and thighs as he fucks him, building up a steady pace. Mickey squeezes himself around Ian’s thick cock, smiling at the helpless whimper it elicits.

“Oh my god,” Ian says breathlessly, as Mickey arches his back into the sensations of pleasure radiating through his body.

Ian's strokes get steadier and more rhythmic, confidence building right before his eyes, and Mickey's an idiot for denying himself this for so long now. This is the best feeling in the world. He can’t help it when a small growl escapes.

Ian throws his head back abruptly and gives him an amused, curious look. “Did you just growl at me?”

“I didn’t do it _at_ you, it just happened.”

Ian snickers, not skipping a beat with his thrusting hips. He leans forward and licks Mickey’s lips, whispering, “Do it again.”

Mickey laughs and pushes himself back onto Ian more forcefully, until they work up a pace that has him teetering on the edge, then lets out a growl twice as loud as the last one. He can feel his own fangs slide out just that tiny fraction more. He’ll have to be careful not to bite into his own lip.

Ian moans loudly, and Mickey can see the beginning signs of him losing control. He reaches down to touch himself as they hurtle towards climax, and watches Ian’s face closely, memorizing every line, lash, and pore. His skin shimmering with sweat—the way it so often was out in the fields—the way Mickey’s could never get anymore. His lips shiny, mouth agape. His brow furrowed, eyes closed tightly. Mickey watches Ian orgasm, and doesn’t even close his eyes when his own hits. A benefit of his inhuman self-control. He’s too invested in capturing this moment in his head forever. It’s genuinely beautiful. He hasn’t appreciated anything as much in many years.

Ian remains close to Mickey afterward, curled into his side, soft and satiated. Unusually quiet, however.

“So?” Mickey finally asks. “How was it?”

He can feel Ian grin against him. “It was great.”

“Just great?” Mickey says in an affronted tone. “I think we can do better than that.”

He rolls onto Ian loosely, keeping most of his weight off of him. Ian's definitely reverted back to having a sullen look on his face.

“Exquisite, amazing, extraordinary,” amends Ian, but his faint smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t think about it,” urges Mickey, catching Ian’s wandering gaze. “You made the decision.”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

“Maybe. But it’s not what you should be thinking about now.” Mickey doesn’t want the word ‘war’ to be spoken tonight, so he will just have to distract Ian from his morbid thoughts by any means necessary. “That was only Act One, remember?”

Ian gulps. “I remember.”

“You still want to perform Act Two?”

Ian nods eagerly. “Yes.”

Mickey leans down and kisses Ian until his mind seems to let go. He lets Ian roll them around the bed. Lets him get lost in this brief respite from the realities that lie ahead. Lets him dictate the pace.

“Mickey?”

“Yes?”

“If I asked you to do something, would you?”

“No,” he replies decisively.

“You don’t know what I’m going to ask!”

“Yes, I do.” There's only one thing it could possibly be. His cock gets hard again just thinking about it. But he can’t do that. He won’t. Not with Ian.

“How?”

“You know how.”

“Can you read my mind?”

Mickey looks at him like he’s the dumbest person alive. “No! I can just tell.”

“But, Mickey—”

“No.”

“I want you to.”

“No.”

“Why? Do you not want my blood?”

Mickey holds back another wolf-like growl. His dick gets harder still.

“I definitely want your blood.”

“Then take it.”

He says it so simply, with a disconcerting nonchalance.

“Ian, I said no.”

“But you never explain. You say yes or no, but you never tell me enough about why.”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you. Why do you wish to be hurt?”

“Is it very painful?” asks Ian meekly.

“It can be.”

“Can it ever be a pleasure?”

“It can.”

“Then that’s what I want.”

“I could still lose control. Go too far. I can’t let that happen with you.”

“You won’t go too far. I told you, I trust you.”

He really needs Ian to stop talking, but his fangs have started coming out again, and he can’t risk a blowjob. He uses his natural speed to go retrieve the oil he’d need to keep the proceedings going, and returns to lie above Ian within a few flashes of the human eye.

Ian blinks up at him. “What?”

Mickey holds up a small glass jar, dips two fingers inside, then begins to massage between Ian’s ass cheeks, appreciating the surprised gasp it induces. He kisses Ian again as his hand continues exploring previously untouched territory.

“Will it hurt?” asks Ian between kisses.

“Some,” says Mickey. “But it’ll get better. It builds up.”

Ian nods quickly. “Okay.”

He slips one finger inside, and Ian screws his face up, exhaling brusquely. Mickey rubs his neck with his other hand. “Relax.”

Ian has never looked less relaxed. He’s tensed up to an almost comical degree. Mickey really wishes he could do this with a blowjob. He kisses Ian again instead, sliding his finger slowly in and out, seeking out the erogenous zone that would slowly be Ian’s undoing.

He swallows down all of Ian’s grunts and moans, slipping one more finger in to get him used to more girth. Soon, Mickey is slicking himself up with the oil, and pushing himself inside.

Ian hisses at the slow slide of the intrusion, and pulls Mickey closer.

His fangs are fully protracted now. That always happens when he puts his cock in something, but it’s been so long, he feels more lustful than usual. Ian reaches up and touches his fangs again, gasping as Mickey pulls his hips back the first time, and thrusts in again. Ian’s arm drops as he closes his eyes and grunts, slowly but surely growing accustomed to the dick moving inside of him. Mickey can see the switch from pain to pleasure, and soon Ian is moaning, and his hands are all over Mickey, and all over himself. Mickey smiles and leans down closer to Ian’s face.

Mickey shifts his hips and starts fucking into Ian at a slightly different angle, smiling at the blissful look on the redhead’s face. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, and he pulls Mickey closer so that he can whisper in his ear, “Do it.” Mickey pulls back to read his face, but Ian only swivels his head to the side in order to pointedly bare his neck. “Bite me.” Mickey groans.

Ian’s neck is conveniently right in front of his mouth. His fangs are just mere centimeters away from that big, juicy, flowy vein just beneath that soft, creamy, penetrable skin. God, Ian is so stupid. But Mickey is also so hungry. He’s been getting by on little human blood these days, and this really is a weak moment for Ian to be parading hot veins in front him like that, while his cock is impossibly hard and buried in slick, tight, warmth. He closes his eyes. If this were anyone but Ian… any random human he didn’t give a toss about… if he were in the middle of having his way with them like this, he’d definitely be seconds away from feeding. Definitely.

He opens his eyes. A jugular seems to pulsate and call to him. Ian moans, squeezes himself around Mickey’s dick.

Mickey’s hips speed up. Ian moans again. Mickey’s teeth scrape over that vein.

Ian gasps, hands clawing at Mickey’s back in reaction to the rapid pace.

Mickey’s head rears back. Ian’s body arches upward. Mickey sinks his fangs into Ian’s neck.

Ian cries out, body tensing for a moment, then going limp.

Mickey sucks as his hips pump and pump away. Ian’s nails are digging into his back like a cat’s. The moaning is unreal. The taste is delicious and deeply satisfying. But he can’t indulge himself for too long. Ian needs to keep his strength. He allows himself a pint of blood, then pulls back to look at Ian’s face. He still looks blissful, so Mickey continues fucking him while he licks at the puncture wounds he just made. He’s so turned on he could explode.

He thrusts into Ian faster still, and takes his cock in hand, pumping it in tandem. He licks and licks and licks at the blood. Ian cries out Mickey’s name obscenely, and tightens around him, gushing cum up between them. Mickey groans, letting his mouth close around the wounds once again and give one last hard suck as he comes too, holding fast to Ian’s thighs, to keep him in place.

The orgasm gets him light-headed, and he wants to sink down into Ian’s body and trap him there, but he knows he can’t. So he pulls out, and rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. Then he settles himself on his side so he can study Ian for just a while longer.

He watches as Ian reaches a hand up to feel the holes in his neck, gasping when he touches them. They’re still oozing a small trickle of blood. Mickey bats his hand away and pricks his own finger with one deflating fang, then brings it to the wounds and rubs his blood in so that they heal on the spot.

Ian touches his neck again, and yelps. “What did you do?”

“What I did with Liam and Carl. Kind of. Healed you with my blood.”

“You really are a magician, you know,” smirks Ian.

“Oh sure, you say that now that you've experienced this magick cock,” jokes Mickey.

Ian guffaws, and Mickey smiles contentedly.

“That was…” begins Ian.

“Yes?”

“Pretty incredible.”

“It was.”

“Is it always like that?”

“Not always. If you’re lucky, it’s good most of the time.”

“Your bite… it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”

“Why did you want it, then, if you thought it would hurt you?”

“I just wanted to know what it was like. Had to know.”

“Well, now you do.”

“I suppose so.”

Mickey watches Ian snuggle down into the softness of the bedding, eyelids heavy, and fluttering.He leans over and kisses his cheek.

“You should get some sleep,” Mickey tells him.

“But you’ll be awake for hours,” Ian protests through a yawn.

“That’s okay, just have a nap. You need it.”

The blood loss was bound to make him a little woozy.

“No,” says Ian, even as he's drifting off.

“And Ian?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Stay safe. Don’t try to be a hero. Just… come back home.”

“Okay,” he murmurs softly, just before he's completely out.

Mickey can’t help it if a stray tear escapes while he packs up the last of what he's taking with him.

By the time Ian woke up, he’d be safely hidden away from the light of day a county over, sleeping through the hours until he could make it to the train station in the evening.

  


When Mickey sees Ian again, two years have passed, and he’s not the same anymore. It’s like Mickey had feared… significant wounds… they’d impaired Ian’s full ability to use both his left arm and his left leg. But it’s the way Ian’s demeanor has hardened, the way the glow of his aura has dimmed so considerably, that is the worst part.

Mickey cries when he sees him, but it’s mainly out of relief to see him there at all.

Ian says, “I love you,” about fifteen minutes into that visit. Mickey calls him a stupid human.

  



	5. Flesh of My Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dent of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart.”

**Shropshire, 1815**

Ian doesn’t get up at the crack of dawn anymore. His days of being the earliest riser are long over. But that is the least of his worries now. Much more upsetting is the fact that he’s no longer the hardest worker in the Gallagher fields. Not because he doesn’t want to be, but because it’s now physically impossible. It’s pushed Lip to pick up the slack, which he supposes he probably already had to do in Ian’s wartime absence, but he sees a fierceness in his older brother now that he’s sure was only spurred by seeing Ian in his current pathetic state. Ian wishes he didn’t resent him for it. He’s always loved Philip and they’ve always had a close bond, but Ian’s only human, and he has to admit that the current contrast in virility does get under his skin. Sometimes he even sits at his window and stares as Lip farms the land and herds the cattle, the sour, jealous feelings building up in him like an awful inevitability. And he hates himself more for it.

He’s full of equal measures of rage and pity towards himself these days, and he despises the way it triggers him to lash out at his family in ways both large and small. The way they look at him now… that’s probably the worst part. They see him for what he is now… a broken thing. An unwhole thing. He’s taken over the role of Debbie. She’s dead and he’s alive, but barely. He’s slotted into the role she played as the sickly Gallagher in need of constant looking after and tending to. The one whose life would inevitably be cut short now. The one who was merely biding his time.

He sleeps half the day away like some house cat, and struggles through the other half trembling through the kind of menial tasks he’s now relegated to; tasks formerly most suited to his younger brothers. Whenever he attempts to do too much, Fiona appears at his side and harps at him until he relents. He’s too slow, and lacking rigor. He pushes himself too hard, and makes too many mistakes, and it’s embarrassing.

He even lives in Debbie’s old room now. They thought it proper for him to have some privacy, or maybe it was just that he’d be a huge bother to anyone putting up with his tossing, turning, moaning, and occasional crying out in the dark. He’s afraid to turn in every night and be transported back to some of his worst memories, but the Essence of Poppy does help him drift off and it keeps him nightmare-free for a few hours at a time on the best eves.

After a balmy day of working the fields, slowly and clumsily tilling and scattering seeds, he’s too exhausted to even attempt to wash himself, so he allows Fiona to do it for him.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, too fast, Ian,” she says without preamble, as she holds his bad foot aloft and softly bathes it with a large brown sponge. Ian begins to scoff and pull away, but she holds him still and tilts his chin back toward her. “Give your body some time to heal. Give your head time to get used to all of it. Eventually, you’ll have more mobility and it won’t be as painful.”

“You don’t know that,” he bites out with a frown.

“I know that you’re the strongest Gallagher in our lifetime, and I have faith that you’ll get better. But not overnight, yeah? Just take it easy until you build up your muscles and your tolerance. You’re doing a great job as it is. No shame in it. No judgement.”

“I don’t need you to patronize me, Fiona. Lying to my face is not a kindness.”

“I am not lying to you, Ian Clayton Gallagher. I _am_ optimistic, however. And one day, you will be again, too.”

He winces as her sponge makes its way up his thigh, and grabs it from her so that he can at least wash his own genitals, staring unseeingly at the ceiling corner as he does so, then passing the sponge back with a heavy sigh.

“We none of us mind helping you, you know?” she continues softly, rinsing the sponge, squeezing it out, and beginning to scrub his good leg. “It’s okay to need help.”

He closes his eyes, tilting his head upward, knowing she will never understand. He says nothing else while she finishes her task, then helps him into his night clothes. He waits until he’s alone to take his medicine, and climbs into bed. The last thing he remembers is blowing out the candle on his bedside table before sinking under.

Reality crashes back around him like a canon blast as he inhales a loud shuddering breath and sits upright on the lumpy mattress, eyes wild and darting, as sweat drips down his clammy forehead. He shivers and pants as he tries to gain his bearings, but he can’t find an anchor in the dark. Doesn’t know where he is. Doesn’t want to be back there. Can't let them take him back. He flails his good arm wildly, reaching for the keepsake Fiona had given him to take to the front; a small wooden horse their father had carved years back, when he was a boy. If he could just get his hand on it, everything would be okay. He could find his way out.

Instead of finding the wooden trinket, his vice grip finds a smooth, cold, stiff… _hand_?

He yelps and looks up in horrified wonder, only to find yet another hallucination of his fevered brain. A face he hasn’t seen in over two years. A touch he hasn’t been able to forget for even one whole day since, even at the lowest depths of rock bottom when all that existed was chaos and death. A man he’d probably never truly see again.

Suddenly, the flame of the bedside candle is relit, partially illuminating the shadowy figure that seemed to be haunting him.

“Mickey,” he whispers, staring into those icy blue eyes he knows aren’t really there, as he lays back against the pillows once more.

He’s completely and utterly taken aback when his dream lover bursts into tears, and Ian’s brow furrows in confusion.

“Mickey?” he says slightly louder then, not expecting an answer, but waiting for the image before him to melt away or fade into something unpleasant.

“Ian,” the apparition gasps wetly, and he feels his hand being squeezed too tightly, wincing in discomfort. “I’m sorry,” it says, dropping to its knees at the floor next to him. “I’m so sorry.”

“The poppy,” sighs Ian, chills rippling through his body once more, and his teeth chatter. He reaches for his bedside table again, but is halted, and suddenly he’s sitting up and being fed a spoonful. “What?” he’s confused again. How can a phantom be so tangible? Be helping him?

“Shh. Just go back to sleep.”

He lays his head back on the pillow, but his eyes aren’t heavy yet. He’s not ready to slip back under. He just stares and stares, trying to wrap his mind around what it is he’s seeing and what’s really going on. “I don’t understand.”

Then that porcelain pale hand is reaching for him again, smoothing his sweaty hair away from his forehead. “I’m here.”

“You’re… what?”

“I’m back, Ian. I came back.”

“You’re here?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” says Ian, settling more into the downy softness beneath him, letting his body uncoil and relax into the bedding. “Mickey?” he asks again, dumbly.

“Yes. Mickey.”

They watch each other silently for a few minutes, before Ian’s eyes begin to flutter, feeling heavier and heavier. But before the elixir can whisk him back under, he grasps for Mickey’s hand once more, pulling it against his chest and flattening it over his heart.

“It’s really you?” he asks.

“I promise,” says Mickey. “It’s me.”

“Okay,” Ian replies, closing his eyes and drifting away. “Mickey?” he says one more time as consciousness recedes.

“Yes.”

“I love you.” He’s been wanting to say that for a long time now, he thinks. He’s glad he got the chance. Even if it isn’t real. Even if it doesn’t last.

He's sinking, and just barely hears the softly spoken chastisement, “Stupid human.”

Ian awakens late into the morning, and moves to sit in the window for a while until he can bring himself to start getting dressed. Something feels… _different_ this morning. He can’t put his finger on why, so he closes his eyes and leans his forehead against a glass pane, wracking his brain for clues. Something about last night. A dream, perhaps. A good dream, for once, instead of a horrible one. His eyes snap open.

“Mickey!” he says aloud, remembering the apparition at his bedside in the middle of the night.

He immediately goes to search for clues that the man… the vampyre… his lover… had really been there. He finds none, yet somehow… there’s a trace of the essence of him lingering in the air. Then again, Ian figures, that was most likely the remedy playing tricks on him. It was a good pacifier, but it distorted everything and twisted it together, so that he could never be sure of what was real and what was not. His nighttime head was a horrendous jumble of nightmares, and memories, and ghosts, and futile attempts to get back to normal.

The most vivid of remembrances could seem so real.

That evening, he tries to give himself some time to read before he medicates himself to sleep, and retires to his room early. He finds it difficult to concentrate now. Barely reads or writes at all, because it’s so frustrating. Still, it’s a good excuse to be alone and not have to deal with his siblings' scrutiny, so he’ll give it a go and see how long he can make it before inevitably hurling the book at the wall in frustration.

He’s barely gotten comfortable (well, as comfortable as he can be when he’s always in discomfort), when there’s a light tapping on the window. He looks up from the novel he hasn’t even opened yet, and gasps as Mickey floats in on a gust of wind, landing on his feet without making a sound.

“Mickey!” he cries, stunned. “You really are here! You were here last night.”

“Yes,” he replies with the faintest trace of a smile. “I tried to tell you that numerous times, but you… the opium…”

Ian nods. “It distorts everything. Can’t tell what’s real.” He looks down at his hands. “But you always seemed only partially real in the first place, didn’t you? Maybe you’ve always just been a figment of my imagination.”

Mickey reaches his side in what looks like one big stride, and he pulls up a small cushioned stool that stays at the bedside for visitors, namely the town doctor, and the siblings who give him sponge baths when he’s too tired, or read aloud to him when he needs to be entertained. He takes Ian’s hand again, and it feels more real than it did the previous evening.

“Your siblings would beg to differ,” he avers. “I promise you, abomination that I am, I still manage to exist somehow.”

“Why?”

“Why do I exist?”

“Why are you here?” Ian clarifies. “Last time you left me, I thought I'd never see you again.”

Mickey cringes almost imperceptibly and looks away. “I’m sorry for that, Ian. I... I couldn’t just… watch you go off to war like everything would be okay. I… knew it wouldn’t be. I told you as much. Perhaps it was selfish, but it was what I felt I had to do.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, simple law of averages—”

“That's not what I meant,” says Ian. “How did you know I would be back here?”

“Well, I didn’t, exactly. I just hoped. I’ve been looking out for your name on the casualty and wounded lists. Well, I have an agent who takes care of such things for me. He has better access to the War and Colonial Office. I assumed you’d be transported back here somehow, if you didn’t die from complications.”

“Nearly did,” admits Ian, without elaborating. “Was one of the lucky ones.”

Mickey doesn’t respond. He supposes there’s not much one can say to something like that, aside from platitudes, and Mickey isn’t one for those exactly. Ian appreciates that about him, now more than ever.

“But why are you here?” he asks again.

“I care about you, Ian. Very much. More than… more than I’ve cared about anyone in a very, very long time. I needed to see you for myself. Make sure the report was right. That you had survived intact.”

Ian snorts, unamused. “Well, most of me is still here anyway. Chunks are missing.”

He taps on his bad leg with his bad hand, and taps his good hand to his head, then curls in on himself involuntarily. He doesn’t like discussing his injuries. Has no interest in recounting what caused them, or what led up to it.

“The important thing is that you’re still around. Life is better than the alternative isn’t it?”

“Is it? I’m not sure anymore.”

Mickey drops his hand. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? Am I no longer allowed to express my opinions freely, because they may sometimes be upsetting? This is who I am now, Mickey. I’m not the boy you met five years ago.”

“That may be, but I believe you will feel differently about it once more time has passed.”

Ian sighs and chuckles humorlessly. “Never thought I’d live to see the day that you sound exactly like Fiona.”

“Then that should prove to you that it is the truth.”

“All it proves is that neither of you understand. Not one bit.”

“Would you care to enlighten me?” asks Mickey.

“Not particularly. Not now. One day, perhaps… should you stick around, that is.”

Mickey takes his hand again. “Of course I will.”

Ian meets his eye. “Are you sure about that? You're two for two.”

“I’ve nowhere else to be. Might as well spend some more of my precious eternity toiling away in that cursed castle down the way.”

“You never told me how you ended up in Clun of all places. You seem more suited to London if you like England so much.”

“Yes, well, it’s quite a long story. I’m sure you will hear it one day, as I will hear yours about… what happened to you.”

There is a long stretch of silence then, as they both ponder.

“I understand now, you know,” Ian finally states in a hushed tone. Mickey looks at him with a quizzical brow. “About Debbie. Why you wouldn’t… why you couldn’t… refused to make her like you, just to give her some kind of life.”

“You do?” Mickey inquires skeptically.

“Yes. Really and truly,” Ian replies. “You knew that it would make her a killer. Like you.” Mickey turns away again. “Like me, now. It’s not something to wish upon a child pure of heart. She would have gone on living, but she would have been much changed, yes?”

“Yes,” whispers Mickey. “She could have even harmed you or your family. Newborn vampyres can be erratic. And with a child… it would have been more unpredictable. Besides, the turning should be a choice, not a sentence imposed by someone else. She was too young to decide that kind of fate.”

“I understand. I am at peace with it now. And still grateful to you for all you did. More so, really. I’ve seen… people go in much more horrid ways. The worst ways. She didn’t deserve to die, but at least it was a good death.”

It’s Mickey’s turn to laugh darkly. “Surely we can think of a more light-hearted topic of conversation to occupy us a while.”

Ian shrugs. “I’m not so good at ‘light-hearted’ anymore.”

Mickey gives him the world’s saddest smile. “Well then,” he says, grabbing the book resting in Ian’s lap, “perhaps I can read aloud to you for a spell.”

He peruses the cover title: _St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance_ by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

“Lip has already read some to me, but I don’t mind if you start it over. If you’re able to read and narrate at a normal sort of speed that my poor humble human brain can follow. It’s actually quite an appropriate story for you to be relating, I dare say.”

Mickey smirks. “Is it now?”

“Yes. The protagonist, Wolfstein, wants to kill himself, but then he meets gypsies, and monks, and this man, Ginotti, with the secrets of immortality. There’s even some stuff about reanimated corpses. It’s Gothic.”

“You don’t say.”

“Just read.”

And so Mickey does. Once the pain radiating through Ian’s body becomes too much to bear for the evening, he reaches for his nighttime potion and warns Mickey that he will soon pass out. Of course this doesn’t daunt the superhuman for a moment, and he vows to stay at Ian’s side until he’s fast asleep, if he doesn’t mind the company.

“You can stay,” affirms Ian.

Mickey does. He also comes back. Every night. Like he used to do in those final days that Debbie was alive. Ian’s not sure anymore if the parallels are comforting or portentous. He tries not to dwell on it, but he has so much time on his hands to think about all these things in ways he’s never thought of them before. He wasn’t exaggerating when he told Mickey he’s not the same person anymore. He’s definitely not a boy, and it wasn’t even the sex he’d had with Mickey that made him feel like a real man for the first time. It was all the darkness that followed.

At first, they don’t talk much. Not about any of the deeper things. Outside of the constant struggles happening inside his brain and body, Ian prefers to keep a lid on serious discussions about how those struggles came about. Usually, Mickey just reads to him, or tells Ian his own stories, whether invented or recounted, he’s not really sure. Probably a mixture of both, knowing him. Somehow, Mickey’s renewed presence in his life makes Ian less cross with his family on most days, and reinvigorates him when he’s working the fields. He pushes harder, but it makes him more tired too. Mickey is content just to watch him sleep at night, he says. Even if they don’t get to reading or speaking much. It should probably make Ian feel queer, but it doesn’t.

They haven’t done a single sexual thing since reuniting. They haven’t even kissed. Ian doesn’t really think of it, or mind it particularly, in the beginning, because he doesn’t exactly feel sexy these days. But after a while, he supposes that his feelings and his urges begin to catch up with him, and suddenly he wants to talk about _everything_. He wants to spill his guts, just as much as he wants to get answers. So he does what anyone sane and reasonable would do, and picks a fight with an immortal.

Mickey’s reading to him as usual. _Guy Mannering or The Astrologer_. Ian’s not even paying attention to the narration, he’s just stuck inside his own head with circling thoughts of a most disagreeable nature. It’s as if some spirit outside of himself takes over, and his bad hand is whipping out to clumsily wrench the novel out of Mickey’s hands in an attempt to fling it against the wall. It falls short by a wide margin, landing on the wooden floor with a thud, instead.

Ian gives a spiteful laugh at that. “Christ! I can't even throw a goddamn book against a wall properly! Of course you’ve lost all interest in being with me!”

He eyes Mickey askance for a moment, expecting a reaction somewhere on the scale of ‘flabbergasted,’ but of course, the unhuman is his usual infuriatingly unshakable self, so there’s not much outward sign of emotion one way or the other. It only makes Ian angrier, so he turns toward Mickey and continues to yell in his face.

“What? No emotion? Did you lose all of it again after you finished crying at my bedside that first night? When you were too disgusted by my crippled state to turn off whatever natural human instincts still linger inside you? Why do you even come here, if there is no chance of fucking me again?”

God, it feels good to have an outburst. He needs this catharsis.

Mickey doesn’t speak, so Ian just goes on with the rant.

“Would you like me to remove my clothes and bandages so you can see all the jagged scars? They are countless, but I’ve studied each and every one up close. Wracked my brain to try and pinpoint the precise second each wound opened in my skin, and muscle, and bone. I relive the moment every night, you know? Every single night. That fraction of a second when four men were blown to smithereens right in front of me, and I looked down to see blood and guts everywhere, and couldn’t tell what was mine and what was theirs, only that I appeared to somehow be alive, but I couldn’t move. And they would never move again, but I just lied there. For hours. And then I had to drag myself away from the scene. No one was there to do it for me. The fight had moved on. And all I could hear was anguished moaning and screaming, and all I could smell was rotting flesh and infectious decay.”

He glanced at Mickey again, and this time he could tell he had his rapt, petrified attention.

“And the nights I’m not waking up to that scene replaying in my head, I’m flashing back to other big moments in my brief war career. The first time someone was killed in front of me. Just as close as where you sit. Bullet straight through the head as he was talking to a man just behind me. I was smoking a cigar given to me by a Spaniard. I’d been laughing at some joke. And then there was blood splattered across my face, and I was hitting the dirt and searching for a weapon. Or sometimes I get to relive the first time I killed a man face-to-face. Stuck him with a bayonet, right in the middle. Pierced whatever internal organs I could, over and over, because it was him or me, you see? And that was just the first that I _know_ of. Takes into no account the times I helped set off canons, or fired from the infantry line. Doesn’t include all the men I killed afterward. There are plenty of other images of dead comrades and enemies stuck in here too.” Ian taps the side of his head. All the true horrors are trapped right in there, stored safely inside his skull. If he had a way to release them, he’d give anything to do so.

He hears an ever so faint murmur of his name on Mickey’s lips, and becomes incensed once more at the now shocked expression painting his normally stoic face, making it appear gaunt and haunted.

“Now you’re starting to understand, aren’t you?” Ian sneers. “This is all that’s left.” He gestures to his broken body. “A gross husk encapsulating a mental case. I’ll probably drive myself mad eventually. And you will be long gone. I’ll continue on alone for the rest of whatever life I have left, never to be desired by anyone ever again.” He wants to be embarrassed by the tears that have begun pouring down his sad, stupid face unbidden, but it’s really inconsequential now. Mickey might as well be driven well and truly away so that no attachment continues to be formed. If Ian can make him leave now, it won’t hurt quite as much later. He growls loudly in frustration, a guttural, animalistic sound from deep inside his core. “I might as well be dead!”

Before Mickey can begin to respond, if he was intending to at all, the bedroom doors bursts open, and a flustered, unkempt Fiona appears, obviously awoken by the volume of Ian’s furious outbursts. “Ian! What is—”

Her wide eyes take in Mickey’s presence, and she’s momentarily stunned into silence. Mickey stands from his seat beside him, bowing his head slightly. It seems to spur Ian’s mind into action, and he sits up straight.

“Fiona,” he says infinitely calmer than he was just a minute ago. “This is my friend, Mickey.”

She blinks and hesitantly steps further into the room. “Isn’t it a little late for visitors?”

Ian waves a hand at her. “He reads to me at night when I can’t sleep.”

“And gets into loud rows with you, to boot?” she asks with incredulity.

“It wasn’t a row,” says Ian. “I just got a little upset. Got to talking about… things.”

“Why have I never met you?” she addresses Mickey directly. “Do you know Ian from France? Did you fight together?”

Mickey’s eyes dart between the siblings, and Ian interjects, “Yes. Mickey has family near to town. He’ll only be here another week or two.”

Fiona gives them each a suspicious once over. “Well, Mickey, perhaps you’d care to call during the daylight hours and meet Ian’s family properly. We can invite you to dinner.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mickey says in a manner that is almost meek. It shifts Ian’s mood to something almost resembling bemusement for a brief second. “It’s probably best for Ian to take his medicine now, and get some rest. I should take leave.”

“Yes,” nods Fiona. “I think that would be best.”

Mickey looks at Ian then. “I’m sorry for riling you up, Ian. I’m sorry for… well, I’ll see you when you’re feeling better.”

He departs through the house for the first time since he initially stepped foot into the Gallagher cottage, and Ian fends off Fiona’s burning questions, letting her get him dosed and situated, before he lets sleep take him once more.

The following night, Mickey doesn’t appear around the usual time. Ian skulks morosely at his window, and congratulates himself on accomplishing what he’d subconsciously set out to do, which involved some convoluted way of pushing away the one being who might be able to somehow get through to him still. He laughs at himself, not finding anything funny in the least, and climbs into bed, arranging himself on his stomach for once, as his back is tired of taking the brunt of his weight constantly. He draws absent patterns on the old threadbare rug with the forefinger of his good hand, and tries to envision some kind of future for himself. One that doesn’t involve deteriorating away into nothing while trapped inside of this depressing sickroom.

He must have dozed off at some point, because he’s startled awake some time later, and not by some hyperrealistic nightmare.

“Maybe since I’ve caught you sleeping, you’ll allow me some time to speak?” says Mickey, face a calm mask, half-lit by a single flickering candle.

Ian can do nothing but watch wide-eyed, his throat frozen shut in surprise.

“I know I’ve revealed very little of myself to you over the years. That was purposeful, in part because it’s simply my nature to withhold, and also because you’re the one person I’ve felt comfortable enough to be somewhat myself around, without fear of violent retribution or moral judgment. But there always has to be parts of myself that stay hidden, even with you, so I’ve been careful to strike what balance I could. I tried to explain to you that I’m here because I care about you. Too much. I shouldn’t care about you at all, do you understand? It should make no difference to me whether any human should live, or die, or be happy, or whatever else. It’s trivial and matters not on the grand scale of things. Yet, I cannot stop myself from being pulled towards you constantly. Even if I were to put much distance between us again, I’d still be plagued by unending thoughts of you. And now that you’ve allowed me to be privy to everything you’re dealing with, it’s even harder. I know you wish to push me away, but I don’t know if I can be pushed. And that frightens me, as it would frighten you, if you ever had any damn sense in your stupid red head. I care not for the state of disrepair your body is in. I still find it quite beautiful. Maybe even more so. I have an unhealthy affinity for the macabre, after all, so it would take more than a few ugly scars to dampen my attraction to your flesh. I have an appetite for it. I crave it, even when I deny myself. And as for your essence of spirit… the mental anguish you feel is driving you mad is quite reasonable and makes perfect sense to me. You _should_ be angry, and sad, and raging against all humanity and life. Everything you’ve gone through makes your reactions completely justified. Nothing about your body or your brain makes you undesirable in the least. All your wounds, both physical and psychic, are to be commended. You’ve earned them. And you should not want them to kill you, like they killed so many others. You should want them to help you survive. To go on living. If not for yourself, or for me, then for your remaining family. You can get through this, and you can move on. You are one of the most strong-willed humans I’ve ever come across in this lifetime. Do not let mortal foibles defeat you.”

Ian is quiet for a few moments, staring into glassy eyes full of determination, until finally susurrating, “That was quite a soliloquy.”

A small measure of gladness infuses him when that gets a tiny chuckle from his inhuman friend.

“Did any of the words penetrate your thick skull, or are your ears to remain deaf to all they do not wish to hear?” asks Mickey.

“They penetrated,” Ian confirms. “And I greatly appreciate the sentiment…”

“But?”

“But… I can’t go on like this, Mickey. It’s been nearly a year, and the madness, and the pain, it’s just never-ending. I know I won’t last. And I shouldn’t have to.”

“Ian—”

“No. I mean it. I am resolved in this. Turns out, Debbie was a much stronger person than me, because she could stand and embrace life on a mere survival level, and she took all the good she could from this world, and managed to reject the bad. I’m not built that way. This isn’t me. This can’t be me.”

Mickey remains silent.

“You could change that, you know?” Ian challenges.

Mickey’s eyes narrow and darken even further.

“What?” spits Ian. “You can't tell me you haven’t thought about it. You think I actually forgot? That I haven’t thought about it too?”

Mickey turns abruptly away from his bed and begins pacing the floor.

“You could change me, Mickey. Take me away from all of this torment. Take me away from death’s door. Make me stay by your side for good. As an equal. You could heal me right now, if you wanted to.”

Mickey releases a deep, incendiary growl of disgust in his direction.

“But you don’t want to, do you? All those lovely words you just spouted to lift me up are just words, right? You have no intention to use what gifts you have to actually make me better. You could solve it all, and yet you won’t. You don’t really care. You’re incapable of caring. I’m just a plaything to you. And now you have some kind of guilt about stringing me along, but you won’t go the distance for me.”

Ian yelps in astonishment as all at once, the wooden stool at his bedside is thrown so forcefully against the wall that it shatters into pieces, a roaring cry of rage booms from Mickey’s throat, and the vampyre leaps through the open window and out into the night.

He’s still staring agog at where Mickey had just stood, when Fiona and Lip come crashing into the room in alarm.

“Ian! What on earth!” his sister yells.

His words are stuck, and all he can do is pant forcefully as his heart pounds with the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

“What is happening?” his brother demands.

Ian shakes his head, still unspeaking.

Fiona approaches slowly. “Ian, you can’t go on like this. You’re scaring the wits out of your younger brothers with this behavior. I understand the night terrors, but breaking things, and screaming… we need to get this under control.” The wind rustles her hair. “And why is this window open? If you catch a cold, it could lead to complications. You need to be more careful!”

Ian shivers, finally finding his shaky voice. “I’m fine, Fiona. I’m sorry for waking you. It was a very realistic nightmare, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sorry.”

Lip still looks concerned, but slightly mollified, and he tries to usher Fiona away. “It’s okay. I’ll stay with him.”

“No,” Ian tries to protest.

“Yes,” Lip replies firmly. “I’ll lay some blankets on the floor. No arguments.”

Ian sighs heavily and turns onto his side, away from his two older siblings. He ignores their whispering as he counts imaginary sheep to try and tumble back into the darkness of sleep.

Mickey doesn’t return the next night. Or the one after. He stays away for three whole days, yet Ian can still feel him near. He still doesn’t exactly understand what that’s all about, but he’s come to accept it, and relish it. They are already connected, and have been for some time.

The fourth night, Ian is turning in, a notebook open in his lap as he considers trying to jot something down it, but he’s not exactly sure what he wants to say. Then he looks up, and Mickey is beside him as if he’d always been there.

“You know not what you ask of me,” he says without preamble.

“I know exactly what I ask of you,” counters Ian.

“What is that, then? Say it plainly.”

“I want you to…” he pauses, gulps, shudders, then continues, “to bite me. To turn me.” He gains more confidence. “To make me like you are.”

“And you know what I am? And what I have to do? You understand you’ve never seen the nastiest sides of me? That you’ve only ever seen the best parts? That I have shielded you from the worst of my nature?”

“Yes,” Ian nods. “You drink blood. That’s how you go on living, but not living. You can never be hurt. You can never die. You can heal me, so that I may join you in that new kind of living.”

“That is part of it, but much of what you assume is not true. You said that I could take you away from death, but that isn’t so. I would be taking directly into death’s arms. You would be mired it in forevermore, until you should decide to embrace the true departure and end it yourself, or permit someone else to do it for you. There are ways we can meet our end, though it is much harder to kill us. And all those problems you have stuck in your head, about killing men, and seeing them killed before you… that will still be a part of your undead life. You will take more lives, and you will see them taken. Everything about your humanity will be at once removed and enhanced. You won’t understand any of it until you transform. Until you start to feel it, and to live it. And you may even grow to hate yourself anyway. Or to hate me for what I made you. Don’t you understand the depths of my own self-loathing? And I never even had a choice. I didn’t ask to be made this way, it just happened to me.”

“Which gives me an advantage, does it not?”

“You don’t take this seriously,” accuses Mickey.

“On the contrary, Mickey. I take it very seriously. My life as it is now will end one way or another. With or without your help. I will either die, and my soul will separate from my body forever, or I will die, and you will ensure that my soul stays inside of it for good.”

“I never said anything about vampyres having souls.”

“How could they not?”

“We don’t even know what a soul is, or if it even exists. Souls are human concepts related to superstition and religion. You’ll have all manner of moral quandaries on that score, no matter what.”

“I don’t mind,” says Ian.

“And your family, Ian… It will be much better, and safer for all of you, if you cut all ties with them. It’s possible that you would never see them again. They will all grow old without you, and live their lives as if you no longer exist. As if you really are dead and gone.”

Ian bows his head sadly. “That’s okay. I’d prefer them to move on. To not be burdened with me as I am now. In the end, it will be easier for them, and for me. They will get passed it. As will I.”

“Are you sure about that?” asks Mickey. “This place is all you’ve ever known. These people are your only people. You will never feel as connected to another place, or time, or group of humans ever again. Everything will change beyond what your imagination can even begin to fathom right now.”

“Do you remember the nice white lies I used to tell Debbie?”

Mickey nods, and finally takes a seat on the wooden chair that’s been moved into Ian’s room from the kitchen, after his stool had been smashed in Mickey’s towering rage.

“I wanted her to believe that somehow, we’d make it to exotic places thousands of miles away from here. That we’d find some kind of way to see ancient wonders, and majestic beasts, and extraordinary landscapes. I knew she’d never get to see those things, and I know she knew it too, but we could pretend. And now I have an opportunity before me that would make it so I didn’t have to pretend. I could actually fulfill the promise of those flights of fancy, and see whatever I wish to see. Do whatever I ever want to do. Anything under the sun… or moon, as it were. Why would I not take that opportunity, when all that awaits me here is suffering my way into an early grave just like my poor sister?” He reaches for Mickey’s hand. “There is no choice, Mickey. This is the only way. It has to be. It’s why you were put in my path. It’s why we found each other. I know it. You know it. Maybe we’ve both known it for a long time now.”

“I don’t believe in destiny, Gallagher.”

Ian smiles ruefully. “Well, I'll believe in it for the both of us, then.”

Just like that, Mickey’s mind is made up, and Ian’s entire being is relieved to know that he’s going to get his way. His agony will soon be over, and he will be given a second chance at life. A different life, yes, but one that affords him opportunity, rather than hopelessness.

They make plans. He tells Mickey all the things that he wants to see, and although hesitant at first, Mickey soon begins to tell Ian all the things he’d like to show him. The promise of soon-to-be-fulfilled fantasies take the edge off of Ian’s interactions with the rest of the Gallagher clan. He can’t deny that he feels guilty about leaving them behind without explanation. The last thing he wishes to do is hurt them. So he tries to find his own subtle ways of saying goodbye to each of them, without the luxury of explicitly telling him that he’s leaving.

Mickey has explained very emphatically that he mustn’t stick around once he’s turned, as his newborn thirst for blood will be overwhelming, and he could end up slaughtering those he loves dear in some blind hunger that reason wouldn’t be able to reach. Still, Ian knows he has to do what he can to ease their future worry. He tells Mickey he must find a way to support them economically. He discovers that, apparently, that’s no problem at all. Mickey can set it all up. He has more money than he’ll ever need, it seems, and until Ian can accrue his own wealth, Mickey will ensure the Gallaghers receive a kingly stipend. Evidently, Mickey has solicitors and bankers all over Europe that work for him and his sister, Mandy. They maintain finances, documents, properties, and any other incidentals for them, no questions asked. Ian inquires if he can make it so that the farm should prosper once more the way it did in the old days, when his parents were still alive. Or if it could even grow into something better, so that they could all do less work, and reap more reward. Mickey promises to make it so.

Finally, he asks Mickey to use his supernatural powers to inform Fiona and Lip of Ian’s impending departure and their ability to rely on him from afar, without them really knowing or remembering the exact circumstances. He asks him to get them to accept his being gone for good, and it being for the better. Asks him to unburden them as much as possible, and make it easier for Ian to leave.

Finally, the night arrives. The night they’d chosen to follow through with their grand plans to make Ian a member of the undead forever.

Ian hugs all of his siblings in a very heartfelt manner, much to their confusion, then hurries outside to wait for Mickey. He hears the murmur of Mickey’s words to them, covering all the things Ian asked him to. All the seeds being planted in their brains, that will allow them to accept the news they will receive in the coming days, weeks, and months, perhaps even years. It becomes too painful to bear, so Ian takes off gimp-running in the general direction of Mickey’s castle, knowing that he’ll be found easily once the man is through with the assigned task.

He’s in the middle of a clearing of tall trees when Mickey joins him, taking his hand silently, and watching as Ian gazes up at the star-filled sky. He wonders how different it will look with his new eyes. Wonders what sway the moon will hold over him, once the sun is forbidden.

He allows Mickey to pull him on, and marches as if in a trance the rest of the way to the old tower. He hadn’t been there since Mickey had left him after their union before the war, and it seems even eerier and damper than he remembered.

Rather than lead Ian to his bedchamber once more, Mickey descends a spiral stone staircase that opens up into a large underground chamber that slightly resembles a dungeon, with a stone slab planted in the middle, and hundreds of lit candles scattered all around. It looks like the scene of some sacrificial ritual, which he supposes, in a way, it is. He’s giving up this life for another one, and there is a process that must be carried out for that to happen.

Mickey has explained it to him somewhat. Not in vivid detail, but enough so that he knows what to expect of the experience. Still, now that the moment is here, it is a bit daunting.

“This is very elaborate,” he tells Mickey.

“Yes, well… why not?”

Ian smiles uncertainly. “I guess this is really it.”

“Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

“No,” he answers quickly. “This is what I want.”

Mickey nods brusquely. “You will most likely be asleep for at least two or three days. Your body will break down, and rebuild itself into something else. It will require more energy than you can imagine. When you wake, you will feel stronger than you’ve ever thought it possible to feel. You will want to test your own strength, but try not to be foolish about it. Try to remember who you are. What you want to become. Try to hold onto all the good parts of yourself. And try not to harm the innocent.”

“You speak as if you won’t be here to guide me.”

“I will,” says Mickey, “but you could get away from me. You will be unusually strong at first. Stronger than me. Then you will adjust, and my age and experience will have dominance, but until then… should you be on your own… hold onto yourself as best you can. And whatever you do, don’t go back to the farm.”

Ian solemnly agrees.

“Come to the altar,” urges Mickey.

“Altar?” Ian asks with arched eyebrow.

Mickey gives an exasperated eye-roll, “That’s what it’s called, I’m told. It’s best to do this here, so we know there's no chance of any light reaching you while you transition. I will stay by your side all the while. I promise.”

Ian gulps thickly, and slowly ambles toward the cold stone slab where he will die.

“Take off your clothes first.”

He sighs, and turns to Mickey with a tentativeness he hasn’t felt yet tonight. He hasn’t let anyone outside of family and medical professionals see him naked since the war. Mickey’s eyes shine in the candlelight, and he steps forward to help him.

“It’s okay. May I?”

Ian nods, and lets Mickey assist with his jacket and shirt, trying not to stare at the long, ugly gash that runs along his forearm, and across his palm, in between his pinky and middle finger. Mickey takes the arm in his hands, and places chaste kisses at various points along the scarring. Ian’s eyes well up, and he feels the overwhelming sense that this is right. Then Mickey undoes his trousers for him, and Ian gazes into those crystal blue eyes, recalling the heat between them that day long ago, when they were upstairs in a warm bed, learning each other’s bodies. He hasn’t kissed anyone since that day, and it feels like a million years ago, so he takes a risk, and leans into the man in front of him. At first there’s not much to it, but then the passion builds, and it seems as if their mouths are fused together as they move against each other.

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Ian thinks, ‘ _this is right_.’

His mind goes to that hazy space that Mickey has so often made it go before, and suddenly he’s nude, lying back on the altar, gazing up at him with wondrous eyes, unconcerned with having his bad leg exposed in all of its gruesome glory. It looks like he’s had sections of it dug right out of him, but he knows now that Mickey is not fazed.

“It will hurt more than the first time I bit you,” warns Mickey. “Since I mean to drain you, rather than take just a pint or two of blood. And when it comes time to drink, you must drink deeply and heavily until I tell you to stop, understand? You’ll want to fight it, because you don’t have the taste for blood yet, but you mustn’t, or this will not work, and you will die a true death.”

“I understand,” Ian says softly.

“I’ll ask you one last time, Ian. Are you sure this is what you want? This eternal life in the dark of night?”

“I’m sure.” There’s an ominous pause, and then, “Do it.”

Mickey leans over him, and Ian’s breathing picks up, unable to forget that these are the last moments he will ever breathe at all. A flicker of fear must show in his eyes, because Mickey kisses him again, as if to pacify his speeding thoughts now that the moment has come.

Ian closes his eyes and gives himself over. The press of chilled lips disappears, and then… the sharp stab of fangs at his throat, the radiating pain of the punctures increasing evermore with the intensity of the vampyre’s ardent sucking. His eyes snap open, and he’s not sure if he’s crying out, but he knows he wants to. All he can feel is Mickey all around him, and inside of him, as reality recedes like a bad dream, stripping everything away until all that exists are the two of them on this altar, taking and giving life. Replacing death, even as it’s beckoned forth to claim him.

His body starts to sag weakly, and his eyes begin to droop, but somehow he hears a voice over the low hum ringing in his ears.

“Drink, Ian! Drink now!”

And he feels a warm, thick, sticky trickle begin to slide down his throat, the taste on his tongue almost unbearable, his lips forced around a gaping cut that Mickey’s made on his own chest, right near his left nipple.

Ian wants to gag. Wants to vomit. He snarls, gnashing his teeth in futility, kicking out against the hard stone, and attempting to land blows with his fists, but it's no use. He gasps, trying to catch a breath somehow, but he can’t. All of his senses are now consumed with this exchange of blood. His eyes roll back, and he sputters helplessly, but still Mickey forces his lips tightly over his rigid flesh, grip unyielding around his shoulders and the back of his head, until finally it seems to be done.

His limbs writhe involuntarily, and he feels like he’s choking. He can’t breathe. He can’t. He convulses on the stone slab, and an intense pulse of energy suddenly surges throughout his entire being, filling him up and pulling him away from the brink of the great beyond. His eyes no longer see, his skin no longer feels, there’s no sound to be heard, and nothing to anchor him anywhere. The life seems to slip right away.

He falls into a deep sleep.

The last thing he remembers is the last word he word he ever says as a mortal.

“Mickey.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments if you enjoy it.
> 
> [blog](http://thevioletjones.tumblr.com/)


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